


Everybody's Looking For Something

by bowlingfornerds



Series: All For One, and One For All [1]
Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - University, Cheating, Drop Ship bar, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Fun, Gags, HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS, Jokes, Love, Multi Chapter, Roommates, Slow Burn, Tattoos, bisexual relationships, general jealousy, long story, lots and lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 61,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4256376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Clarke meet in school. But that's the only normal thing about their friendship. Together, the two of them and other best friend, Miller, face school and the real world. Set over a time span of six years, Clarke, Miller and Bellamy go on a fantastic adventure called 'being teenagers'.</p><p>Expect love, hate and maybe a tramp stamp or two.</p><p>Or, the one where they grow into adults together and that I finished without dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Take That Sinner From Me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super excited for this. I've only done one other multi chapter fan fiction, and that was two chapters long. I'm aiming for about twenty, but I'll put up the number when I figure it out.
> 
> For reference, I'm from England. I will write 'mum' not 'mom' and I might make references to GCSEs and A-levels, so just nod along and pretend you understand until you write in the comments, asking what the hell it all means.
> 
> The title of the story is from the song Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - the version I'm listening to is by Emily Browning. I'm going to try and only use lyrics from songs from my Bellamy and Clarke inspired playlists for the chapters, too.
> 
> In that theme, the chapter title is from The Civil Wars song, Devil's Backbone.
> 
> Enjoy.

Clarke’s day got a whole lot better when he sat down next to her in English. It was the first day back at school – September 6th – and she knew she’d have to knuckle down a lot harder this year, for her final GCSE year. The only thing was - she was new.

Clarke’s mother had moved them across the country, from Polis to Ark, for her final year in secondary school. This was a pretty detrimental year, and Clarke wasn’t just surprised that her mother was risking it, but also that she would move in the first place. However, Clarke had grown up in Ark until she was seven, and now she was fifteen, she had returned.

Anyway, he sat down next to her.

 _He_ , being Bellamy Blake. She felt like she couldn’t really look at him directly – that his smile was too bright or his face too pretty to stare straight at; like the sun, she thought absently. But he wasn’t the sun – he was the universe; a galaxy of freckles across his skin and the worldly look in his eye. He couldn’t have left Ark in his life – not many people do – but he had an aura about him as if he was born to be in bigger places.

“Hi,” he said, dumping his backpack at his feet.

“Hey,” she replied quietly. They didn’t talk for the first few minutes. She’d arrived to school early, to pick up her timetable and to find her first class, so she’d laid out the notebook the teacher had handed her, as well as her pencil case. She noted that everyone else just pulled out a pen from their blazer pockets.

Her table-mate (at least, that’s what it said on the board, with the diagram of the room and their names on one half of each rectangle), Bellamy, it seemed, glanced over at her often, from his relaxed position in his chair. Immediately, she was worried that she had been landed with a slacker who would copy all of her work, but she didn’t need to.

The moment they were handed _A View From The Bridge_ , by Arthur Miller, he sat up, flicking through the first few pages.

“Have you read it before?” He asked, startling Clarke. She nodded – the play was about Italian-Americans in Brooklyn, hiding illegal immigrants in their house. There’s love, hate, a lack of sex, and she generally found it interesting to read. She thought he would end it there, but he kept going.

“So what did you think of Eddie’s obsession over his niece?” He asked, looking generally interested. She shrugged.

“A little paedophilic, if you ask me,” she said as he cracked a smile. She noticed that he covered it quickly. “And, with the ‘walking wavy’ as well as them having no boundaries?”

“He so should’ve enforced something, right?” Bellamy agreed.

“Yeah, or his wife,” she replied with a smile. Her table-mate chuckled and placed the book on the table in front of him.

“Bellamy Blake,” he said, looking back to her. She smiled a little.

“Clarke Griffin.”

 

The lesson practically flew by from then onwards. They joked a bit – argued over the use of Marco and the lifting of the chair (“it’s meant to signify strength and ward off Eddie,” Clarke insisted. “He was just showing off,” Bellamy said, rolling his eyes. “Even I can lift a chair.”), and eventually, as it drew to a close, he slid her timetable from her pencil case and compared it to the one he pulled from his blazer pocket.

“We have the same schedule,” he informed her.

“Really?” He nodded.

“Apart from Art,” he admitted with a nod.

“Ah, not the budding artist?” He all but snorted.

“No thanks. I’m taking History.”

“I did that in year nine,” she said, plucking her timetable from his hands and stuffing it into the pencil case again.

“Oh yeah? What’d you get?”

“B,” she replied. “Could’ve got higher – but I suck at American West.” He smiled, picking up their books and dumping them on the pile at the front of the class with everyone else. He spoke when he returned.

“How’d you do in Medicine Through Time?” He asked.

“Aced it,” she replied with a shrug. She didn’t watch his eyebrows hit the ceiling, but when she looked back, they were still in place, hanging from the lights.

“How’d you manage that?” She shrugged.

“My mum’s a doctor.” There was a sense of finality in her tone and he didn’t ask any more questions, just led her to their next class. He sighed when he walked through the door, and she glanced back to find him looking at the teacher. He nudged her forward and they took seats in the back.

It was immediately odd, not being up the front. She and Maya – a friend from Polis – had always sat at the front of the class. Maya liked it because she was quiet, and being up the front meant that teachers knew you were listening and wouldn’t call on you often. Clarke had done it because she liked soaking up the information. She decided not to tell Bellamy this and very quickly the class was full of annoyed humming over algebra.

It was only twenty minutes in when Bellamy grinned to the boy on his right. Clarke looked past him and to the dark skinned guy, with the guarded expression but small smile. He’d come in late (with a note, promptly handed to Ms Vera) and landed in the seat next to Bellamy.

“Clarke,” he introduced quietly. “This is my best friend – Nate Miller. Miller, this is Clarke. She’s new.” Miller nodded at her and Clarke smiled back. Then Bellamy turned to his friend.

“I know,” Bellamy nodded wisely. “We have to do something about this.” Clarke couldn’t recall Miller speaking, but they were somehow having a one-way conversation, filled with just expressions.

Then, Miller leaned into his bag and produced a small packet, which he passed on to Bellamy. He stuffed it into his pocket before she could see what it was. Then, Ms Vera was in front of her, glaring.

“Miss Griffin, if you would be _so_ _kind_ as to actually do the work you were _assigned_ ,” she bit out, refusing to even look at Clarke’s almost complete work sheet. “And maybe stop fraternising with Mr Blake – _who_ -“ she turned to him with an evil eye “I’m surprised is even here, considering his _low_ _attendance_.” Clarke glanced to her new friend, and there was a look in his eye that said he was bothered by his words. But he didn’t let on, otherwise. Instead, he smiled, swinging back in his chair against the wall, and putting his hands behind his head.

“Just be glad I’m here,” he said easily. Ms Vera gave him a warning before stalking off to the front of the class. The moment her back was turned he glowered.

Clarke sighed as Miller gave his friend a pointed look.

“I know,” Bellamy murmured. “I’m waiting for the opening.” She didn’t question what it was, but continued with the work, not wanting to be berated again on her first day of school (or worse, have her mother phoned). It was about ten minutes later when Ms Vera stopped the class.

“I’m going to go outside for a moment for a quick meeting. I will be gone no longer than five minutes and I want all work sheets completed by the time I get back.” Her voice was demanding and suddenly she swept out of the room and a sigh relaxed over the class.

This is when Bellamy turned to her.

“You don’t seem very rebellious, Princess,” he started, immediately cut off by Clarke.

“Princess?” She asked, incredulously. He nodded, dumbfounded.

“Yeah – you look like one,” he mumbled before recovering. “Like, the way you wear your uniform and stuff.” He shrugged, continuing on with his thought, but a quick look over his shoulder to Miller’s amused, shaking head said that Bellamy wasn’t honest.

“You don’t seem very rebellious, but I’m going to help you break out of that shell,” he said, his voice speeding across the words. Then he produced the gift from Miller from his pocket. She raised her eyebrows.

“Condoms? I like that you’re into protection and all – but I think we’ve known each other for an hour and a half.” Bellamy rolled his eyes with a sigh.

“ _Clarke_ ,” he sighed. “Vera has it out for us and you know it.” She nodded reluctantly. “So we’re going to put condoms all over her desk.” She was frozen for a moment, her mind running over the possibilities. Detention, detention, a phone call home, detention. And although she hated them all, she couldn’t help but like the look in Bellamy’s excited eyes. She nodded without realising she was doing it. “Great!” he exclaimed. “Let’s get a move on – before she gets back.”

He was out of his seat within a second, jumping over the table and walking through the class. She followed slightly slower, noticing the eyes following them. Then he chucked her half of the packs. Immediately, the two opened them, unrolling them and leaving them on her desk, in her draws, under her laptop. Clarke had no clue what had come over her, but she loved it. She was having fun. Actual fun. Not sitting at home doodling by herself, but actual, real fun.

She couldn’t help but pause to look at the boy who made her feel that way. And then, the next day, after some kid from the front of the class had ratted the two of them out after lesson, she couldn’t help but stare at him, two seats ahead and to the right, the entire way through detention.


	2. You're Gonna Lose Your Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of months later, Bellamy and Clarke have a Science lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from 'Lose Your Soul', by Dead Man's Bones - a favourite from the Murder Couple playlist about Bellamy and Clarke.
> 
> So, the chapter isn't very long, but they'll be this length and longer, for future reference. And each chapter takes place a couple months from the others, seeing as the time the story takes place in is a good long time. The chapters you read will be important moments in their lives, or just good memories for them.
> 
> Please enjoy.

Bellamy was fully aware that Clarke was cute. He was. But he also knew, no matter how well they got along (and had pointless arguments) there was a gap between them that she didn’t seem to acknowledge.

In Ark, where Bellamy had lived since he was born, there was a pretty strict divide between the rich and the poor. And right in the centre, was the only secondary school for miles. While this meant that the two intermingled, it also meant that there was a line between friendship groups. And Bellamy had been in the working class group for as long as he could remember – no matter how smart or determined he was.

Miller, his best friend, was middle class, yes. But his house was in the suburbs and that made up for the slight lack of money that separated him from the upper class. Miller was also amazingly bright, so it helped a lot, and he often pulled Bellamy out of trouble by using the position in society he was born in to. Bellamy may hate this divide, yes – but he can sense it from a mile off.

The second Clarke had introduced herself, he knew exactly who she was. Clarke Griffin, daughter of Abby Griffin, former Chief of Medicine at Ark Memorial Hospital, and was taking her position back, as the newspapers stated. Abby Griffin, widow of Jake Griffin, the finest environmental engineer in the country. Abby Griffin, best friends to Thelonious Jaha, Mayor of Ark. Which, in turn meant, Clarke Griffin, best friends to Wells Jaha, son of the Mayor of Ark.

Clarke and Wells had seen each other during lunch on the first day back, where Bellamy and Miller hung back and watched as they hugged and had a quick conversation. He caught the dirty look Wells threw in their direction, but he never acted on it again. After that moment, he must have sensed that Bellamy was sticking around, and he would have to make his peace with it.

So, in December, he may have been forming a strong crush on Clarke as she plopped into her seat at the bench next to him in the Science lab, but he wouldn’t act on it. He would never act on it.

“Hey,” she smiled, dumping her bag at her feet and turning to him, her blonde ponytail flying behind her. He smiled back, drumming on the bench with his fingers as he shifted on his stool.

“You’re late,” he teased. She glanced at the clock.

“Am not.”

“Are too. Clarke Griffin gets to all classes four minutes early. It’s one minute before the bell – what happened? Was there a sudden emergency in the kingdom?” He asked, pretending to look serious while Clarke rolled her eyes. He hadn’t stopped calling her ‘Princess’ since that first day – even though he never told her the actual reason why. (Ok, so maybe the money had something to do with it, but it wasn’t just that.)

“There was an emergency, yes. One of the peasants was snarky to royalty and was banished.” Clarke gave him a pointed look and he grinned.

“Damn peasants,” he smiled. Class got underway quickly after that, and Bellamy tried to soak up as much Biology as possible. But it was disgusting – mainly because today was the day they were dissecting frogs.

Mr Shumway placed the frog in front of them, as he went around the class. He’d already demonstrated what they were to do, but the two of them stared in horror. Bellamy swallowed.

“Go on, future doctor, do your thing,” he urged, nudging her in the side. Clarke’s eyes flitted quickly from him to the frog, as if she were afraid he’d get up and hop away if she didn’t watch it.

“ _Doctor_ , not vet,” she replied quietly. “I have no aim to cut open an animal.” The two of them looked between each other and the tools they had in front of them.  They had to first pick up the frog from its box and place it on the board.

They flipped a coin to find out who would do it.

“Shit,” Clarke hissed, staring at the tails. She pulled on the gloves and gingerly picked up the frog between her two fingers on his front leg. She cringed, turning her head away as she held it up, the weight pulling on the single arm. Bellamy gagged a little, moving back from the bench. And a good thing, too, because Murphy took that moment to yell in her ear.

“Ahh!” He shouted. Clarke screamed, letting go of the frog as it flew from her fingertips and to the floor on the other side of the room. Bellamy stared in horror as it splatted to the ground, covering the area around it in blood and dead frog. He gagged again.

To his right, Clarke slapped Murphy on the arm as he laughed, and Mr Shumway turned to them.

“What happened?” He yelled.

“You dropped the frog!” Bellamy cried out, suddenly unfrozen and staring at Clarke. “You dropped the fucking frog!”

“I didn’t mean to drop the frog!” She replied just as loudly, turning to Bellamy. “Murphy scared me!”

“You dropped the fucking frog!” He repeated. They stared, wide-eyed at each other in the dead silent class room. Bellamy was given detention for yelling and swearing. Clarke was given detention for maiming an already-dead frog. Murphy was given detention for making a girl maim an already-dead frog.

As they walked out of detention the next day, Murphy sent them a nod of acknowledgement before heading off down the hall. Bellamy opted to walk Clarke home, seeing as it was winter and the sky was already darkening.

“Mum’s gonna kill me,” Clarke told him with a sigh. She said the same thing each time they came home from detention, and he’d always smile and say the same thing back.

“Wait for me in hell, won’t you?” He asked with a grin. She smiled over and shrugged her back up her shoulder again. Clarke’s mum didn’t exactly _hate_ Bellamy – just thought he was a terrible influence on her daughter. She wasn’t wrong. If it weren’t for him, he knew she would be sitting quietly and doing her work, head down and avoiding other people. She would be hanging out with Wells and his array of loser friends that Bellamy had never been smart nor rich enough to know. But he had seen her slum it – and although he never wanted to tell her about the divide, or the fact that there was a lot standing between them being accepted as friends in this town, he also didn’t want to lie to her.

“Do you know why we get looks when we walk through town?” He asked, looking at her. She shrugged.

“I assume it’s because we’re gorgeous people,” she replied, blank faced before cracking a smile. He smiled back at the joke before shaking his head.

“No, it’s because we come from two different worlds.” Clarke rolled her eyes. “Seriously! I live in a flat with my sister and mother – and half the time it doesn’t even have water.” Clarke sighed at this. She knew about his life – about his mother who worked odd jobs and how he was raising his younger sister. She had been to their home and bit her lip instead of commenting on it – which he appreciated. It didn’t mean she was ever comfortable hearing about it. “Clarke, you are literally a Princess in this town.”

“So?” She asked, stopping in her tracks. “What does that matter?” Bellamy tried to answer but fumbled over his words. “ _Exactly_. It means nothing, Bell. We can’t choose the families we’re born into, but we can choose the ones we die with. And I don’t want to die in the upper corner of Ark, in the maisonettes with the copious amounts of caviar when none of us even like to eat it.” Bellamy sighed and looked away, rubbing his neck. He felt bad – for jumping to conclusions and annoying Clarke. “Bell,” she said, nudging his arm with hers as she started walking again. “I’d prefer to die happy in a home with no water than alone in a home that doesn’t believe in the hosepipe ban.” Even Bellamy cracked a smile at that.

“You’re best friends with the Mayor’s son,” he said, a weak attempt to win the fight. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not best friends with the Mayor’s son,” she replied, glancing up at him. He was surprised, and she linked her arm with his. “I’m best friends with you.”


	3. Your Eyes, They Shine So Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy tags along to Clarke's art sessions after school and tries to draw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:
> 
> One. I've almost finished the first season of Sense8. I'm probably going to write a fusion with The 100 based on it.  
> Two. I will try and update this every day.  
> Three. The chapters will get longer, I promise.  
> Four. The title is from Imagine Dragons' 'Demons'.

Clarke hadn’t noticed that Bellamy stared at her when drawing, after he started joining her there in art during the extra afterschool sessions. This meant, of course, that everyone else had. John Mbege (he was only there for the alternative to detention) pointed it out to her as Bellamy was scribbling in a page of her sketchbook. She’d handed it to him for him to draw in, warning not to take up too many pages, while she painted her work.

“He’s so drawing you,” Mbege said as he joined her at the sink. “He does it every time he comes along.” Clarke shrugged.

“He always takes the pages with him, I don’t know what he draws.” Mbege rolled his eyes.

“You, duh.” The next time it was brought up was by Miller, who had come because he and Bellamy had plans to hang out. Bellamy was very secretive about his drawings, and from the one time she’d met his sister, Octavia, she found out that he wasn’t very good at art. (“You can draw? Bell can’t draw to save his life – will you draw me?”)

This time, Clarke was flicking through the pages of her sketchbook, noting down what needed to be finished before the exam. She didn’t mind Bellamy glancing at her – in fact, now that Mbege had pointed it out, she noticed it more and more. He had to be drawing her – there was no other reason, right?

But Miller pointed it out when he came to look at her sketchbook, and stood beside her, turning through the pages. He didn’t comment on anything, just nodded subtly when he liked something, and his eyes would glass over when he didn’t. She found herself watching him and glancing down at the page he was looking at, to make sure.

Then, he spoke.

She had guessed that Miller’s voice would be fairly quiet anyway, but it was quiet that day because of the situation, not because of his natural demeanour.

“I think he’s drawing you,” he whispered. Clarke nodded, trying to hold back her surprise from hearing him talk. She’d heard his voice maybe three times since September, and that was almost six months ago. She’d asked Bellamy if it was selective mutism, he’d shaken his head. _“If he has something important to say, he’ll say it,”_ he had promised. So this must have been even a little important.

“I think so too,” she agreed. Miller nodded, turning the page in her sketchbook again to her final design and nodded once more. She let out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t known she’d been holding, as if Miller’s opinion on her final project would make her change it within two days of the exam. (She knew it would have.)

It was pointed out to her again, three or four weeks later, on the last week before the Easter Holidays. Wells had joined her in the class room (“ _Art_ _Barn_ ,” her teacher had brutally insisted.) partly because he wanted to make up for not seeing her often, and partly because he had news from his father about Easter dinner.

“It’s going to be weird,” she told him. “It’s weird every year.” Wells nodded, pulling up a stool next to her.

“It never used to be weird,” he pointed out.

“But that was when my dad was alive,” she retorted calmly. “You know she still makes him a place at the dinner table? It’s like she forgets that he’s gone. Though,” she sat up and tapped her lip with her pencil. “I haven’t seen her do it recently. She stopped about a month ago.” Clarke didn’t want to consider what that must mean, but Wells obviously did.

“I bet she’s dating someone,” he said with a smile. Clarke shrugged, trying to mask her confusion. If her mother _was_ dating, why didn’t she tell her?

“I don’t know. Maybe she finally realised it was weird. Like, it was sad at first, but it’s gone to the point of strange.” The conversation drifted away and soon it was Wells consistently looking at Bellamy, and she couldn’t figure out why. Until she sat up, that was, and noticed that Bellamy was drawing in her sketchbook again.

“Is he drawing you?” Wells asked. The tone in his voice was almost angry, and Clarke had noticed that recently in regards to Bellamy – as if he personally blamed the guy for Clarke not being around as often.

Clarke shrugged, glancing down to her work before looking back up to Bellamy as his eyes flitted her hers.

“Bell,” she said, leaning forward. “What are you drawing?”  She saw his mouth tilt into a smirk as she watched him.

“I’ve been joining you here for months and that is literally the first time you’ve asked,” he told her, looking up from the drawing. Clarke shrugged.

“I’ve been busy,” she replied. Bellamy smirked a little more before shrugging.

“Well you can’t know,” he said. She tilted her head.

“I can’t know what you’re drawing?” She asked. Bellamy nodded.

“Not until it’s done. And even then, you need to see with the rest of them.” Clarke couldn’t help feeling confused, but he’d already gone back to drawing so she had no chance but to wait until he was done.

Bellamy was finished as she packed up, but then he said that he would take her to the rest of them, but it would mean walking over to his house. She agreed immediately. It wasn’t that she wanted to avoid dinner at home, where her mum was either there and not setting a space for Dad, or getting home and finding a note saying she’s got a long shift and eating on her own. And it wasn’t that she particularly wanted to go to the other side of the town, where Bellamy’s small flat was.

But she liked being in his home – it had lots of personal touches, and his younger sister, Octavia was a constant, pretty presence. O, as he called her, was three years younger, in year eight. She went to dance class every Tuesday and Thursday and Bellamy would always pick her up after. Octavia was a whirlwind; she would knock down anyone in her path, and keep close those who could remain standing.

So when she arrived at his front door, she was a little nervous. Even though Octavia had been nice the last time they met, Clarke knew that Bellamy thought the world of her – and if Octavia ended up not liking her, she could almost put money on Bellamy changing his mind, too.

He unlocked the door and pulled her inside – which she knew partly to be because of the shady area, and partly because the neighbours were dicks who preyed on the young, out in the hallway. She liked looking around the flat, even though it was tiny. There was a small living room with a pull out sofa that Aurora Blake, their mum, slept on and two tiny bedrooms. On the other side, there was a bathroom and a kitchen.

Bellamy didn’t waste time in calling out to Octavia, and she reluctantly opened the door to her bedroom a couple seconds later.

“Hey,” she smiled, before looking past him and to Clarke. “Ooh, you brought your girlfriend back.”

“Not my girlfriend, O,” he sighed, dumping his bag on the sofa.

“Yeah right. You talk about her all the time – even Mum knows everything about the girl, and she’s never here.” Bellamy rolled his eyes before sending Clarke an apologetic look.

“Go back into your room, O,” he ended up saying.

“He can’t deny it,” Octavia called out. “Nice to see you, Clarke!”

“You too,” she replied quietly. When Octavia was gone, Bellamy made a gesture for her to follow, carrying her sketchbook in one of his hands and flicking through the pages. He tore one out as he reached his bedroom door.

“Right,” he said. “Sorry about her. But basically, I haven’t been drawing you – I mean, I have. But not, _you_ you.” Her look of confusion was enough for him to open his bedroom door.

She hadn’t been in there before, but it was small and organised with a wardrobe, bed and desk. It had a small window on the right hand wall that lead to the fire escape, and stacks of books piled in every available space. Her mouth made an O as she looked around the room, and then her eyes caught the main attraction.

Above his desk were his drawings. They were crude and obviously worked into, with a lot of effort shown through the cartoons. They were of her – well, sort of. Each face on every bit of paper was hers; he’d even coloured a few in with her blonde hair and blue eyes. But the rest of the drawing definitely _wasn’t_ her.

Clarke burst out laughing, as her eyes roamed over the images. Bellamy grinned from next to her as he watched.

In front of her, on the wall, were tens of drawings of her face with the bodies of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. She grinned at T-Rex her, and Pterodactyl her before looking to Bellamy with a wide smile on her face.

“This is what you’ve been doing?” She grinned. He nodded, pulling a piece of blue tack from his stash on the desk and attaching it to the latest of his drawings.

“Yeah – I’m not good enough to actually _draw_ you, you know,” he replied with a shrug. Clarke grinned before hugging him – not their first time, but definitely the first time in his bedroom. When she pulled away, she watched him stick the newest one up – Clarke with a long neck and a yellow and green body.

“You’re such an idiot,” she smiled.

“Ah, but I’m an idiot who can draw human-dinosaur hybrids,” he replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: I'm still not funny. There will be some chapters soon where actual, serious things happen, and not just Bellarke friendship time.


	4. Above The Rest, And Prove Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is a rebel, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I concede. This one is really short. I had very little inspiration. Real life things are going to happen to them soon - don't worry. Also, I'm not a big fan of this chapter, but I really wanted to write a Brave Princess scene. I might upload twice today, because of the length.
> 
> Title is from 'Warriors' by Imagine Dragons.

It was a Friday, one of the first of the school year now Bellamy was in college. Or, sixth form, as they called it. He was sixteen, almost seventeen, taking four A-levels highly revolving around history and English literature. It was the Wednesday before when he and Clarke had been sitting in form when they were told that Principle Sydney had banned all paisley related items, because of it being a ‘gang related symbol’.

They had laughed, of course, but Clarke had developed a look in her eye and Bellamy couldn’t wait to find out why.

Having known Clarke for a year, now, they’d celebrated their one year anniversary on the Tuesday before with cupcakes and fizzy drinks. They’d gone to the beach by their town and watched the waves before running into them and generally having a great time. They were best friends. Of course, Miller was his best friend – but Clarke was his best friend in a different way. In a girl kind of way, where she’d laugh at anything he’d said and take him on trips to art galleries he had no interest being in.

And he knew he was Clarke’s best friend. Her other best friend, Wells, wasn’t too happy when she referred to Bellamy as such, but she’d assured him, Wells was her lifelong, since birth best friend. Bellamy was her actual best friend.

Over the holiday between year eleven and year twelve, Clarke had finally talked to him about her father. He knew that he was gone, and Bellamy knew that the guy had been great. She’d just never told him what had actually happened – that there had been a car accident with him and her mum, and the paramedics hadn’t been able to save him. On the anniversary of the day he died, Bellamy arrived at her house, laden with ice cream and cake, and sat with her while she cried, following her to the cemetery and watching her comfort film, _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_ with her.

So, on Wednesday, when her eyes glinted, he knew her well enough to know that she had a plan. (He really had been a bad influence on her.)

Then, on Friday when she walked into college in a paisley skirt, t-shirt and bandana – even painted the symbol onto her white plimsolls – he cracked up at the sight of her. They grinned at each other before hugging and Bellamy couldn’t help but wonder how he landed such a great person.

“You know you’re going to get Saturday detention for this, right?” He asked. She nodded with a smile. “Good, well I’m going to take you out for breakfast tomorrow morning beforehand, okay?” Clarke grinned this time, before marching into the college with Bellamy on her tail.

She was almost immediately stopped as she drew a crowd. Within minutes she’d been written into detention, and people were cheering her name as she argued about them sending her home.

“If I go home and this ruins my education, this will be your fault, not mine.”

“You should have worn the proper dress code,” Sydney argued when she saw her.

“No, you shouldn’t be enforcing your opinions on clothes on impressionable minds, and taking away their education because they don’t want to fit inside your box. My mother is the Chief of Medicine at Ark Memorial, and she still lets people work there even if their uniform isn’t always correct, because she knows that they turned up and they’re going to save lives. The wrong pair of scrubs aren’t going to kill and man, and the paisley symbol on my clothes isn’t going to stop me from getting an education!” The cheer was deafening, and Bellamy was the loudest among them. When Sydney glowered and sent her to class, he walked alongside her, before pulling her in for a hug.

“Brave Princess,” he said into her hair and she smiled right back.

The next day, they met at eight o’clock in the morning for breakfast. They wandered over to Costa before ordering and sitting on the sofa at the back of the room.

“Good luck in detention,” he said. “I heard it’s different to regular school detention.” Clarke shrugged.

“Will you meet me after?” She asked. He nodded.

“Duh. I’ll be at the gates. And we can go and get some ice cream,” he told her. “My treat.” Clarke grinned at him and soon enough he was waving goodbye as she marched into college. When she appeared at the end of the day, they hugged again, tightly, before laughing, and Bellamy knew he was a lucky guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still very unfunny.  
> Please, give me kudos and comments and bookmarks and I'll be eternally happy :)


	5. And We're Slipping Off The Course That We Prepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tenth anniversary of Jake Griffin's death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I'd update again, didn't I?  
> This was just me knocking out a random chapter, having a strange time. I don't know. I was feeling it.  
> Chapter title from Lorde's 'Glory and Gore'.  
> Enjoy.

In the summer after Clarke’s first year at sixth form, she sat in silence in her bedroom, staring at the wall for what felt like hours. It was the tenth anniversary of her father’s death. Ten years. Ten whole years of it being just her and her mother. Abby Griffin had booked herself in for a full day of work that day, from midnight to midnight.

So Clarke was alone. She was left to her thoughts and the pale blue of the walls around her. Her dad’s favourite colour was green. Jake Griffin loved to watch football. He’d married his wife at twenty six. Had Clarke at twenty seven. Died at thirty three. Would be forty three now.

She held her breath until she saw spots dancing across the walls, then she was breathing heavily before doing it all over again.

Clarke wondered about the night of his death – the pain he must have been in. Her mother said that he could have been saved if there was more time. But that suggests that there was no way to save his life, because time is fixed, and only in a universe where it’s not would he have lived.

She assumed that her mother was telling her what she wanted to hear.

Clarke padded around the house, bare foot in just her underwear and a blanket. No one would be in that day. The cleaners had been given the day off, as had the cook – though, Clarke noticed that they were using him less and less now.

She checked the doors as she wandered aimlessly, before dropping the blanket when she reached the living room. It was summer and so the heat pierced at her skin as Clarke gingerly sat on the sofa. She swivelled, lying back and kicking her feet up onto the cushions. She stared at the ceiling for a while.

Clarke only moved when her feet started tingling in pain, as if little needles were piercing her skin. She walked, then, without the blanket until the feeling subsided. Only then did the doorbell ring. She stopped in her tracks, considering. Clarke really didn’t want to answer the door – she didn’t want to see anyone and she didn’t want to watch people feel pity over her. But, sighing, she went for it anyway.

As she walked in that direction, she picked up the blanket from the living room floor, pulling it tightly around her body. When she opened the door, she was greeted with two smiling faces. For the first time that day, she felt her lips pull upwards.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

“Morning, Princess,” Bellamy said. Next to him, Miller lifted up the carrier bag in his hand.

“We’ve got ice cream and cider,” he said. Clarke breathed out a sad smile.

“Well then, I suppose you better come inside,” she replied. They followed her in and through to the living room, where they went about setting up.

“I just need to get dressed,” she told them. Bellamy stopped to raise an eyebrow at her. “I’m literally just in my underwear.” Miller chuckled and Bellamy grinned.

“Don’t let us stop you from being comfortable,” Bellamy joked. Miller laughed as Clarke rolled her eyes.

“It’s hot today,” Miller added. “Wouldn’t want you to overheat.” Clarke laughed at that, and she knew that was their aim – to make her smile. It was a shitty day, but it always felt less shitty when she was with her two best friends.

Bellamy’s eyes lit up for a moment and she watched as he silently conversed with Miller. She always found it impressive that they could do that, and wished she had stayed in Ark so she could have grown up with the two of them, able to join in on their secret language. After two years, she could tell when they were hungry, sad, or had an idea. And she could only ask questions about ‘aren’t they cute?’ with her eyes directed at a person. (This was helpful with both of the boys, Bellamy being straight, Miller having told her that he was thinking that he might  _not_ be all that straight, and Clarke being bisexual.)

“Princess,” Bellamy started as Clarke narrowed her eyes.

“Peasant child,” she replied just as slowly. Miller smiled as they both took a few steps towards her.

“We’ll make you a deal,” Miller said. “Bellamy and I came prepared today, in case today was really, really bad for you.”

“You can be comfortable,” Bellamy continued. “Seeing as lounging around in your underwear is a time-honoured favourite for the entire human race.”

“But we’ll do it too, to make it more normal,” Miller finished. Clarke almost laughed. Almost. It was absurd and fairly strange – the three of the them sitting around in their underwear. But Miller was gay and Bellamy was – well, Bellamy. There wouldn’t be much of an issue.

“What did you mean by you both coming prepared?” She asked. The boys glanced at each other, before Miller lowered the waist band of his jeans, lifting his t-shirt. Clarke suddenly let out a laugh – one that even surprised herself – as she recognised the boxers as the ones she’d gotten them both for Christmas. She knew they’d say ‘meat feast’ on the front and ‘buns’ on the back. She’d bought them as gag gifts for the two of them – the label with little food pictures all over them. She never thought they’d actually wear them.

But the temptation of it all was too much, and her friends watched her being swayed.

“Fine,” she said, mocking reluctance. “But only because those boxers are pure comedic gold.” The boys reluctantly pulled off their t-shirts with a few laughs, and Clarke forced herself not to watch. As they were sliding off their shoes to pull down their jeans, Clarke dropped the blanket, to reveal her sports bra and her female boxer-briefs with the word ‘VEGAS’ on the back.

She’d never been to Vegas. But that was beside the point.

Clarke sighed, dropping onto the sofa. The boys joined her on either side, and she was worried in the moment of silence that she would stare at the wall and start to feel her emotions fading again. But it ended quickly, as Miller turned on the TV to start the DVD and Bellamy announced that he was going to make popcorn.

Clarke stayed with Miller as he started up _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,_ silently thankful for her friends. As he glanced back at her, Clarke realised that although she couldn’t always read their expressions, they would be able to read hers.

“Your welcome, Clarke-a-lark,” Miller said, sitting back into the cushions, his arm pressed up against hers. She smiled, tipping her head onto his shoulder as they waited. She let the music of the root menu fill her, hoping that she wouldn’t think too much about the day, or the pain that she would be feeling, ten years ago, in twelve hours.

“Miller,” she said quietly.

“Hmm?”

“If I was a guy, would you date me?” She asked. Miller turned to look at her with a grin.

“No one would be able to stop me,” he replied. She smiled up at him, one question of many cleared from her mind. She considered asking Bellamy something similar – but he liked girls and she was one. He still wasn’t dating her.

It didn’t matter.

They were still best friends, and he placed the bowl of popcorn on her lap when he returned, and they stayed with her, making their way through all three _Narnia_ films, even though they were aware that the second two weren’t actually very good.

Clarke was overwhelmingly lucky, she realised. She may have had a few bad moments, but no unlucky person would have those two boys in their life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Said it would be a random chapter, and I bet you didn't believe me.
> 
> But I love imagining friends hanging out half naked with wacky underwear on, completely platonic-ally. It sounded hilarious in my head.


	6. Tear Out All Of Your Tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story started off alternating between Clarke and Bellamy's perspectives, every other chapter, but I've deviated from that a couple times. So here's another Clarke one.  
> I promise, next chapter, their lives get a little more serious, and they start meeting the rest of the characters.
> 
> The title is from Florence and The Machine's 'Howl'.

Sixth form college flew past. The whole two years were gone in an instant. They’d applied to universities, they’d heard back, and Clarke couldn’t wait to go to TonDC University. Bellamy had applied to the university in Ground as well, and the two of them were overly excited about another three years together.

In the first year, when he’d asked if she’d gotten her application in yet, she looked at him, confused. “Why would I?” She asked. “The deadline’s not until November.”

“Not for med schools,” he told her. “Theirs are super early.” She smiled at him then, big and bright.

“I’m not going to a med school, Bell.” Bellamy sat up, staring.

“But you want to be a doctor.”

“I _used_ to want to be a doctor.” Clarke realised she’d never told him her plans – just assumed he’d know it like he knew everything about her.

“What the hell? What changed?” He asked. She smiled.

“Do you remember that day, back in year eleven, where we had to dissect frogs?” She asked. He nodded.

“Yeah, and Murphy screamed in your ear and you threw the frog across the room.” She smiled again, slightly bigger.

“That happened.”

“But that was a frog, not a human being!” She shrugged.

“It made me realise that I didn’t want to be a doctor – I don’t want to go near dead people, and I don’t want to go near dead animals.”

“Then what do you want to do with your life?” He asked.

“Same as you,” she replied. “I want to be a teacher.”

Now it was nearing the end of their second year. She came out of her last exam – the last day she would ever be in college for. Bellamy was, of course, waiting for her at the exit and he enveloped her into a tight hug.

“How’d it go?” He asked. She’d taken one art subject and three sciences, so she was under a lot of stress. But now, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, I think. It’s over now, though.” He nodded.

“Last step, prom,” he agreed. There had been a prom in year eleven – a boring affair with a shitty buffet and bad music. Neither of them had gone. Whilst her mother had insisted, alongside his mother and sister, neither of them wanted to be there. Instead, the two of them had gone bowling and eaten their weight in burgers and hotdogs. They hadn’t even had to dress up, and it was rated as one of the best nights of their lives in both of their books.

But their college also had a prom, and while people were going to go, it wasn’t going to be massive. They both knew it ended in a party and then an after party full of alcohol, instead of a single slip of paper that could buy one drink.

They had decided to go to this one – if not just to take the piss out of it. Both of them had already bought their clothes – cheap dress and suit that showed how little effort they were actually putting in.

“I have to go back to my locker,” she announced as they were walking. He nodded like he already knew.

Once they were there, he stood back and watched as she unlocked it and flung open the door. Hundreds of ping pong balls poured out, bouncing off the floor and flying down the hallway. Clarke laughed – really, really laughed as she looked from her best friend to the locker. When the storm was over, she pulled one of the remaining ones from her locker and turned it over in her hand. On each one, like this one, written in marker said ‘prom?’

She looked over to Bellamy and grinned, to find he was already smiling back. She noticed him being slightly nervous too, as she pulled him into a hug.

“Of course, idiot,” she said.

“Thanks, Princess. You know how much effort that took?” Clarke laughed again, squeezing one of his hands before pulling her notebook out from her locker and stuffing it into her bag. A small part of her wondered if this was the step she was taking to actually dating Bellamy, but she shoved the thought away again. They were best friends and they were not going to ruin that – she _refused_ to ruin that. She had left Ark with the idea of Wells being her best friend, planted in her head. She wouldn’t make another best friend in Polis, out of sheer denial. And when she came back, she came to Bellamy instead. She would not lose him, too.

She picked up a couple of the ping pong balls, handing one to him. She stuffed the other in her bag with a smile.

“I think we should go,” he told her. “I don’t want to be blamed for this.” Clarke grinned, slamming her locker shut and nodding. But just as they were walking away, her foot landed on a ball and she went flying as it rolled over. Pain bloomed in her head as he smacked against the metal of the wall of lockers and she was on the floor, groaning, hand to her head.

“Clarke? Clarke?” Bellamy knelt in front of her, shaking her shoulders. “Princess? Are you alright?” She nodded, dazed, flinging about an arm to find her friend.

“I think I need to go to the nurse,” she said. He nodded, helping her up and hurrying her along the hallway. When they reached the nurse, he explained what was wrong (casually not blaming the ping pong balls on himself) and let the nurse get an ice pack for her head.

Clarke sits there, ice to her head as Bellamy looks on guiltily. “I’m really, _really_ sorry,” he says, over and over and over. She smiles at him all the while.

“What?” He eventually asks.

“I’ll still go to prom with you, you know.”

A couple of weeks later, Clarke’s in a dress and Bellamy’s in a suit. He picks her up in his shoddy truck, and Clarke’s mum takes one too many photos. He drives them to the venue, both singing along to the radio as loud as possible. There, they park and grin at each other.

Clarke has to admit that Bellamy looks good in his suit ( _even better than normal_ , she says to herself) and with the way that Bellamy keeps glancing at her, she can guess he’s feeling fairly similar.

Together, they walk into the hall, arm in arm. The walls and ceiling are decked out, and there’s a constant spinning light of colours that flash around the room. The music is loud; playing some top forty rubbish, and they immediately spot Miller, sitting at a table with his one beer. Before walking over, the two of them cash in the tokens, and Clarke wished she were a lightweight, so she wouldn’t remember the night too well.

But she was also very thankful for being sober, because she remembered the event perfectly; the way that Bellamy danced with her, his eyes smiling and his hands against her waist. She remembered Miller spinning her, and informing her that _it’s been three years, Clarke, we’re friends, okay?_ when she looked a little nervous. She could even remember taking the photo with the two of them, one on either side of her small frame – but she didn’t need to. Because even when she went to university, the photo came along with her.

 


	7. Don't You Ever Wonder How We Survive?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mario Kart, Octavia, Aurora Blake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, things are actually happening to the three musketeers now. Actual things. It's not just fun and games anymore (okay, so the other chapters I've written after this also have heavy amounts of fun and games - but what's the point in writing a story about friendship if there's nothing showing it???)
> 
> Chapter title is from Paramore's 'Monster'.

It was the last few weeks of school, and Bellamy had already finished. Granted, he kept reading his textbooks in preparation for university, but he also spent every day available with Clarke and Miller. On the day in question, with only one week left of school for Octavia, the three of them were playing Mario Kart.

“You suck at this, Princess,” Bellamy said, passing her on the course. She’d chosen Peach – mainly because she was better than Daisy, and also because Bellamy had called her ‘Princess’ as he walked in, so she stuck out her tongue and said ‘maybe I am’.

“I don’t suck. You do,” she replied, clicking a button as the shell shot out and knocked him over. From Bellamy’s other side, Miller was quietly beating them both. Bellamy swore under his breath as Clarke passed him, and drove directly behind her, gaining speed and passing by on her right. They were on the last lap and it was getting vicious, as Miller crossed the finish line and looked at them pointedly.

But Bellamy was still fighting, and he passed the line only a second before Clarke, coming in second.

“Loser!” He called, sticking his hands up in the air as his friend pouted. “Maybe you should be the peasant,” he told her.

“And you’ll be the Princess?” She asked, rolling her eyes. Bellamy nodded.

“Yep – I’m pretty enough for it.” The three of them broke into fits of giggles as the next track started, and as the race got underway, Bellamy yanked the controller from Miller’s hands and chucked it behind them onto the sofa. Clarke laughed, while Miller smacked him lightly around the head, purposefully reaching in front of him to get the controller back, blocking Bellamy’s view of the television.

“No!” Bellamy cried, stretching to see over his friend. Miller grabbed the controller and immediately joined the race again, shooting round the track and through the short cuts the other two could never find. Within a minute, he was in the lead again.

“Cheat better next time!” Clarke almost yelled as she came in last, again. Bellamy sighed, looking to Miller, who looked proud of himself.

“You know, the point of taking the controller, was for you to lose,” he said dryly. Miller smiled at him.

“The point of playing the game is for you to win – I don’t think either of us are doing what we’re supposed to.” As Clarke broke into giggles, Bellamy flipped his friend off, watching the final sequence of cars. Miller’s character of Yoshi drives down the track first, followed by Mario for Bellamy and Peach for Clarke. Bellamy sighs, leaning back onto the sofa from his place on the floor.

It’s that moment when Octavia gets home from school. The door opened and Bellamy’s head turned to watch her walk in, smiling at the sight of him and his friends on the floor. And while he smiled at the sight of her, it faded as a boy walked in behind her.

“Who’s that?” He asked, bluntly.

“Hello to you, too,” Octavia responded as the boy shuts the door. “My day was great, thanks. How was yours? I see you did nothing today – and, oh look – Miller beat you at Mario Kart, what a surprise. Oh this? This is Atom.” She turned to Atom with a smile. “Atom, this is my big brother, Bellamy, and his friends Clarke and Miller.” Octavia looked pointedly at him as he rolled his eyes.

“Good to hear you had a nice day,” he said. “And why is Atom here?”

“Because we have an environmental project due in tomorrow, and so he came here to finish it.” Octavia rolled her eyes, before walking over and kissing Bellamy on the top of his head. “We’re going to my room to finish it.”

“No you’re not,” Bellamy replied immediately.

“What?” Octavia’s glare, even for a fifteen year old, would scare anyone shitless.

“You’re not taking a boy into your room,” he replied simply. “That’s bad parenting.”

“You’re not my parent,” she told him. “You’re my brother.” As she spoke, she turned, stepping over Miller and walking back to Atom. “And a brother is supposed to look out for his sister and let her make her decisions by herself. He is supposed to get her alcohol and let her drink it, but not let her get black-out drunk. He is supposed to let boys up into her room and scare the guy after. Now, if you don’t mind – and even if you do-” She took Atom by the hand, pulling him the direction of her bedroom. The door slammed behind them.

Bellamy glared at the door.

“You’re going to stare a hole through that door,” Clarke told him.

“She has a _boy_ in her room,” he said pointedly. “That’s not okay!” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I had you in my room at that age,” she replied.

“Yeah, but we weren’t going to do anything! I went in there to kill a spider. They’re going in to _talk_.”

“They’re doing homework,” she said with a sigh, clicking through the options for other cups. “Not make babies.”

“Oh it’s all the same,” Bellamy muttered. Miller snorted from next to him, and Bellamy looked up suddenly. “What?” He asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Miller said, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on the TV.

“What is it?” He persisted. Miller was talking a little more often, recently, he noticed.

“It’s just that you lost your virginity at fifteen,” he pointed out. Clarke nodded from beside him.

“True. Remember Roma?” She asked. Honestly, it was probably the only name she _did_ remember from any of his girlfriends. Bellamy sighed.

“But that’s different,” he protested.

“Why?”

“Because I’m a guy and-“

“So it’s double standards,” she replied. Bellamy opened his mouth to argue, but instead sighed, leaning back against the sofa again. He’d lost this battle. That didn’t stop him from pretending to take the rubbish out after Atom left, running to catch up with him, and threatening his ability to breathe, if he ever saw him in his flat again.

On an unrelated note (although, Bellamy saw it as completely related when he screamed at Clarke that night, telling her that if he hadn’t been at home, if he had been there, if he had noticed that she was late) Aurora Blake died that night.

Bellamy tortured himself, by looking through website after website of survivors of car accidents – what they did differently, what his mother could have done to change the outcome. Maybe if she hadn’t worn her seatbelt, she would’ve escaped. Maybe if she had seen the man, driving through the red light. Maybe if _he_ , the driver, had known that she had a family, and that his dinner could be reheated, whilst a body could not.

Octavia stayed in her room for days – only appearing to use the toilet and return. She didn’t eat, no matter how many plates of food he gave her, or times he yelled and screamed that he couldn’t lose her too.

Bellamy cried a lot. He shouted and punched the walls and lost the security deposit five times over. He swore at Miller and insulted Clarke. He did everything he could to feel again, and when it wasn’t working he would hurt the people around him. He drank a lot and injured people for the fun of it. It was a lot of pain in nine days.

Nine long days between the collision and the funeral. Nine long days and fifteen quick fucks.

When the funeral came around, Bellamy was done. He was drained and he hurt, and he stood there, in his suit, hands clasped together in front of him as his mother met the ground. He hoped she’d like it there – hoped she’d find it comfortable and homey. If she didn’t, he couldn’t imagine how he’d feel.

Miller and Clarke were on either side, standing tall and silent, not moving until he did and never leaving him alone. And as his mother was buried, Octavia hid in his arms and made a damp patch on his suit. Her crying was louder than the committal of the priest, and later, the droning of the social worker.

Many things followed. There were four court dates in total, three meetings with TonDC University, two reconciliations with his best friends, and only one phone call with the landlord of an apartment complex in Ground.

Octavia wanted to go, as well. She told him over and over that she couldn’t live in a home where her mother haunted her; where she expected the same click of the door at ten and two; where she saw her ornaments and photos and the knitting that she never finished. Bellamy nodded as she spoke before cancelling his dorm room at TonDC, and renting another flat.

At least, that way, now he had custody of his sister, he could look after her properly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you something would happen.


	8. All This Time I've Been Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realised I wanted more Miller. Lots more. And I've dotted his chapters throughout now, to fill in some gaps. And I thought I would show you his life, and his character development through them - I feel like I left him out too much in the others.  
> You're lucky though - because this is the second post for today! I wrote this chapter this morning and became so excited I couldn't not show it.
> 
> Chapter title from Imagine Dragons' 'Battle Cry'.

Nathan Miller had things going on in his life – contrary to popular belief. He may have a hard exterior and rarely ever spoke, but things were happening. In the three years since he met Clarke, his father had been dating again. A lot. It was weird. David Miller never dated, and he was always insistent that his son was enough for him. Miller guessed he wasn’t anymore.

(Clarke's mother had started dating too, and Clarke complained about that a lot. Bellamy had said that his mum didn't really date - she didn't have enough time for it. So it was just one of the few things that Clarke and Miller could talk about - just them.)

It had started at the end of year eleven, around the time of prom – which, no, he hadn’t gone to. He had come down with the most horrible flu of his life and skipped it – even though he already had plans not to go. Clarke and Bellamy had decided to come over, but he forced them to go and have fun bowling while he caught up on some sleep. They came over early the next morning, told him how Clarke won the game (Bellamy let her win, but they never told her that) and spent the day playing games and eating copious amounts of ice cream.

While that bowling night was one of the best evenings of his friends’ lives, that day was his favourite.

Anyway, his father had brought home a woman a couple of days after, and Miller knew she’d stayed the night, but because he was ill, he couldn’t go and check on his dad. So he pretended he didn’t hear them both stumbling through the corridor at night, or her high heels clicking on the floor downstairs as she left.

During his first year at college, he ran into one of the flings. He didn’t know her name, but she was beautiful, he supposed. Dark skin, dark hair piled on top of her head and piercing brown eyes. Her dress fit her the most perfect of ways, and he watched his dad lead her past the kitchen, laughing. He saw the look in his father’s eyes as he stared at her – like he was lucky; she was clearly gorgeous and he didn’t know how he landed her. Miller wondered if his father ever looked at his mother like that.

It was later during the night, Miller left the skype call with Bellamy and Clarke to go to the toilet (okay, so he was trying to stop being a cockblock for those two. They were his best friends, and although he could get third wheeled, he couldn’t really imagine how bad it would be, seeing as the two of them dating would be pretty similar to how they already were). He stepped quietly through the hall and over to the bathroom, and that’s when he saw her.

She obviously hadn’t known that David had a son – let alone a teenage one, still in the house. He was seventeen, he’d seen naked women before. But now there was a beautiful one, standing right in front of him, frozen and looking at herself in the mirror. She’d caught sight of him in the reflection and her eyes widened until they were more white than brown.

She spun around, before realising she was unclothed and spun back. There, though, was a mirror, and it wasn’t doing much. Miller just stared, unsure of what to do. The woman in front of him was atomically perfect. Her legs were long and slender as were her arms and neck. The curves of her body looked amazing to him – there was nothing wrong about her body. Nothing wrong about the way her ass looked, nor her breasts that she tried to cover with her hands. She crossed her legs, hoping for him not to see anything down there, and he remained, frozen.

She coughed, with a nod of the head for him to leave, and the spell was broken. Miller was animate again, thoughts crashing around his head. Then, he broke out into a laugh. It was quieter than he meant it to be – but it was a laugh all the same, and considering his emotions were usually closed-mouthed, it was a win for him.

The woman in front of him stared, confused. “Go,” she hissed.

“Fuck,” he said relieved, turning to go. “I’m gay. I’m fucking gay.” Miller said it with a smile. He was so happy that his thoughts were clearing.

“What?” She asked. He stopped walking, and only turned half way – to look at the cabinet, not her.

“I’m gay. Like, literally nothing of what you’ve got going on is doing it for me.” She laughed then. It was a beautiful laugh – everything about this woman was fantastic and perfect and Miller had no part of him that wanted her. Sure, she was with his dad, but that meant nothing to him at that moment. The fact was, he wasn’t interested.

Miller opened the cabinet and reached up to the top shelf, where he pulled down a towel and chucked it over to her. She thanked him and wrapped it around her body before he looked back. She had a quizzical look on her face, like she was trying to sum him up in her head.

“So, looking at my body was so bad that you turned gay?” She asked, a perfectly raised eyebrow. Miller laughed again, shaking his head. The woman in front of him lowered the toilet lid and sat down, Miller sat on the edge of the bath.

“No – I’ve been feeling like it for a while, but when I saw you, I realised that you’re literally the embodiment of the perfect woman, and I wasn’t attracted to you whatsoever.” The woman stared for a moment before smiling.

“I feel like that was a compliment,” she mused. Miller nodded with a shrug. “So, you’re David’s son?” He nodded. “He didn’t tell me he had a kid.”

“Probably doubted you’d come home with him if he did,” Miller explained.

“So he’s done that a lot?” Miller shrugged.

“Not a lot. He hasn’t been with anyone apart from my mother – well, until the last year. Then he’s started dating again.” The woman nodded, lips pursed in thought.

“What do I call you?” She asked.

“Uh, Nathan – but only dad calls me that.”

“So you go by Nate? Or Nath?” She asked. He shrugged.

“Either. Or Miller.” She nodded again, probably sensing that he’d already made up his mind about wanting to be called Miller. “And you are?”

“Eva,” she replied with a smile, before she paused with a thought. “Does he know you’re gay?” She asked. He shook his head.

“Literally just figured it out,” he replied. “Been thinking about it for a while, though.” She nodded with thought.

“And besides looking at me naked, how did you know?” Eva looked genuinely interested and he smiled a lot.

“One of my best friends, Clarke – she’s bisexual. And the way she explained her figuring it out was that she was walking down the road and saw a couple. Usually, she would check out the guy, and she did. But then she checked out the girl as well.” The woman snorted a little with a smile. “It was like that, only, when I saw couples, I only checked out the guys. I was checking out the girls still, for a while – but that stopped and I got a little confused.”

“Good men will always confuse you,” she advised. Miller smiled at her in the silence before he spoke.

“How long have you known my dad?” He asked. She shrugged, checking the time.

“I’d say about six hours.” Miller grinned, rolling his eyes. “I think I’d like to know him for at least another six.” He chuckled, realising how easily he spoke around this woman. He couldn’t speak properly in front of Clarke and Bellamy, let alone strangers. Even his dad only received a few words at a time.

“You might not believe me,” he said. “But I rarely speak. This is probably the most I’ve said since I was born.” Eva raised her eyebrows.

“Really?” He nodded. “Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. I never have anything important to say. And now I do.” Eva smiled warmly at him, and they talked for a few more minutes before she excused herself to go back to bed, and he nodded, saying he’s left his friends on skype for too long. When he returned to his room, Clarke and Bellamy were debating over the best _Star Wars_ film, and he sat heavily, a small smile planted on his face.

“What’s gotten you so happy?” Bellamy asked. He shrugged.

“I met dad’s latest conquest,” he replied.

Only a few days later did he tell his friends he was gay. They grinned and hugged him and Bellamy went about making girl and boy shaped biscuits in the kitchen while Miller and Clarke bugged him and handed him the wrong ingredients. At the end of it, Bellamy separated the gingerbread onto three plates – his had just girls, Clarke’s had both boys and girls, and Miller was faced with a plate of boy-shaped gingerbread. He considered changing that day to his favourite, after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miller feels.


	9. Won't You Hold On A Little Longer?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke makes some new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally just mentions of Bell and Miller today - but here we go. The story is supposed to really start now. Hopefully. I don't know - it still feels like a lot of fluff to me.
> 
> Chapter title from 'No Rest For The Wicked' by Lykke Li.

Clarke only knew Marco for a half a night. She met him at one of the first parties of the school year. Bellamy had refused to come, after looking after his sister and having a lot of work to catch up on. Miller, who also attended TonDC had passed as well – he had a skype chat scheduled with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend.

And Clarke had only met one person so far – Lincoln – in her art class. And while he was nice, and huge, and could have protected her from a missile, of all things, he was busy that night as well. So, she went to the party alone, wearing small pieces of clothing that could possibly attract at least one person, hoping that she could just hang out, drink and dance.

But then she met Marco.

And he was passably cute, and offered to get her another drink, and danced with her and pretended he’d known her all of her life. He hadn’t. But he acted as if he did and that was enough. (He also reminded her of _A View From The Bridge_ , and Bellamy’s dramatic readings in the park in Ark.)

Then again, he’d been gone for fifteen minutes, Clarke was thirsty, bored and wanting to go home. So she resolved that she should probably find him. Of course, the thought passed through her head that she could go home without telling him – but what if he came to look for her? And what if they became great friends? She didn’t want to pass up a great opportunity. So, she took the chance, and pushed herself away from the wall.

“Marco!” She called, looking through the living room. Around her was a sea of people, flooded in haziness and dark lighting. “Marco!” She called again. Somewhere else in the house, she heard a voice.

“Polo!” Clarke stopped for a moment, considering that this could be Marco replying to her. Alternatively, this could be an asshole pissing her off. Either way, she wanted to find the source of the voice.

“Marco?” She called again, moving from the living room into the kitchen.

“Polo!” Came the immediate response. She spun around, searching for the voice or the grinning face. She knew what Marco looked like, but his face was already vanishing from her memory.

“Marco!”

“Polo!” She guessed it was coming from the den, so she kept moving. Clarke pushed through crowds and crept between couples, yelling over and over as the voice replied.

“Marco!” She called once she reached the den.

“Polo!” Clarke turned to find a large smile. It wasn’t Marco, but she couldn’t find it in her to feel disappointed. Instead stood a tall, pale guy with goggles and an oversized jacket. In one hand, he held a cup of clear liquid, and he moved forward the second they locked eyes. “Polo!” He cried. “It’s so good to see you!”

She laughed as he got closer, wrapping his thin arms around her.

“Hey Marco,” she said with a smile.

“Jasper,” he told her.

“Huh?”

“I’m not Marco,” he said. “I’m Jasper!” Clarke laughed again.

“I’m Clarke.” Jasper stared at her for a moment.

“I thought you were Polo.” Clarke giggled at him, taking the cup from his hand and placing it on the mantel. As she turned back to him, he was joined by a guy with high cheekbones and a nice smile.

“Who’s your friend?” He asked Jasper. Jasper jumped away from the guy, scared out of his life, before over-exaggeratingly taking heavy breaths. His friend grinned at him, clearly more sober.

“This is Polo,” Jasper said once he’d gotten his breath back. Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Clarke!” she called out over the music.

“Monty,” the guy replied. “And I see you’ve found the lesser spotted Jasper.” Clarke smiled, nodding.

“I wasn’t looking for him, but I found him all the same.”

“Just like America,” Monty replied. “Wasn’t looking, but here we are.”

“A least I didn’t wipe out a whole civilisation while doing it,” she said. Monty cracked a smile, before looking to his friend.

“Jasper, I think we should go.”

“What? Why?” Jasper complained.

“Because you’re drunk, and those brownies I ate are going to kick in at any moment, and I don’t want to be stuck in a frat house for that.” Jasper rolled his eyes while Clarke giggled.

“He’s right. You’ll wake up naked with permanent marker all over you.” Jasper sighed reluctantly, and Monty invited Clarke along for the ride. She agreed, having nothing better to do, and took one of Jasper’s hands before leading him out of the house.

Out on the street, the fresh air hit her as Monty started giggling into the silence.

“Where do you guys live?” She asked. Jasper shrugged while Monty laughed more.

“I don’t remember,” Jasper said after a moment. His face turned to that of a lost puppy and Clarke smiled still. She couldn’t leave them out on the street. Sighing, she took Monty’s hand in her free one, and lead them back to her dorm.

Her roommate, Harper, was still up, doing work. When she walked in, Harper looked up with raised eyebrows.

“I made friends,” Clarke informed her. “Drunk, high friends.”

“Drunk, high friends who are going to crash here?” Her roommate asked.

“Precisely.”

The next morning, Clarke awoke to groaning and Jasper flinging his arm over her. Although Clarke and Harper had fashioned very nice floor beds for the two of them, they had somehow moved in the night, and Clarke’s bed was now full.

At her feet, Monty stirred, curled up with his knees to his chin, while next to her was Jasper, arm across her body, complaining about the light and his head. She sent the evil eye to Harper, who was standing over her, taking photos.

“At least you scored,” her friend said. Clarke scoffed, sitting up and letting Jasper’s arm fall.

“Yeah, scored two drunk puppies,” she replied as she rubbed a hand against her head.

“At least they weren’t drunk tigers, that’s all I’m saying.” Harper put her hands up in surrender as Clarke narrowed her eyes.

“Tigers?”

“Or replace with any other applicable wild animal,” came the response.

Clarke turned out to be lucky. Very, very lucky. Because if she had found Marco (or seen him ever again for that matter – Jasper tried to convince her he was a ghost) she wouldn’t have found Jasper and Monty. She wouldn’t be able to parade around with them on game or movie nights, or take them shopping, or watch as Monty tried to flirt with Miller just to receive blank looks that only Clarke and Bellamy could read. She was blessed with homemade moonshine and pot brownies that they sometimes swapped for regular ones, to see if they still acted high (they did).

And in the case of Jasper’s little crush on Octavia (that he refused to do anything about, and made everyone promise that it would never reach Bellamy) she was subjected to watching him ramble like an idiot. Really, when it came down to it, one evening when he, Clarke and Harper were drunk in her dorm, he didn’t have a crush on her.

“I’m just weird around pretty girls. And Octavia is one hell of a pretty girl.”

“She’s sixteen.”

“Fucking legal, man,” he replied with a shrug. “But also really weird and I wouldn’t go near her.” Clarke laughed loudly, resting a head on his shoulder.

“You’ll find someone.”

“You should totally set me up,” came the reply. Clarke shrugged.

“I’m sure I could find someone for you.”


	10. Drinking Like The World Was Gonna End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy meets Monty and Jasper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THIS. TEN WHOLE CHAPTERS.
> 
> I'm probably going to update twice today - even though this chapter is actually fairly long. It's just that the next one is really, really not.
> 
> Chapter title from Lorde's 'Glory and Gore'.

Bellamy had heard a lot about Monty from Clarke, after she’d returned from a party with him and his best friend, Jasper. But, he didn’t meet the two of them for another month.

He had gone home with someone – he didn’t remember their name and he couldn’t be bothered to try – and he noticed her hanging a scarf on the doorknob as she shut it behind them. The other side of her room was empty, and he was sure that her roommate wasn’t going to be impressed by being locked out.

They’d fucked and she came first, with him shortly after. And as he was considering getting up and going, because none of it had helped him think about someone other than Clarke, she curled up against his side. Inwardly, he groaned, not wanting to be a dick and leave her straight after. Apparently people got offended by that. So he resolved to stick it out until morning, and leave before she woke up.

He shifted in the bed, wondering if he’d be able to sleep with the world’s coldest person pressed up against his side. Being a furnace himself, this shouldn’t have bothered him – really, they should have evened each other out. But he didn’t know her name, only that she had met him and within twelve minutes had led him to her dorm. It wasn’t a record time, though.

Bellamy waited until she was asleep to slide out from underneath her, pulling on his underwear as he went. He gave her room a once over – her side was fairly messy, with clothes draped over every surface and a box of condoms on the floor. He nudged it with his foot. Half empty.

Over on the roommate’s side, everything was fairly neat. Sure, there was an array of pens on the desk and the bed hadn’t been made, but there was a big difference. As he wondered, his eyes landed on a bottle of wine. Shrugging, he picked it up, swearing under his breath at the cork on top.

If he was going to stay – because he felt that leaving while she had only been asleep for a few minutes was a dick move – he was going to need alcohol. And he’d forgotten to buy any that day – there was that, too.

He looked over the desks for a cork screw before sighing and checking under the bed. The girl he had slept with – Tasha? He wasn’t sure – had boxes and a suitcase under her bed. But not a cork screw. As he straightened, his eyes caught sight of the scissors on the desk.

Bellamy took a few quiet steps over and picked them up by the pink and purple handles, before checking the time. Eleven forty four. A good time to drink, he thought. Part of his mind flickered to Clarke, and wondering what she would be doing. He knew it wouldn’t be sleep, not this early, so he considered it quickly and decided that, as it was a Friday night, she was probably in his apartment with Octavia. She seemed to come over most Fridays and watch films, or – cringe – paint their nails in the living room.

Admittedly, Bellamy was thankful that Clarke was being so nice to his sister. He knew that Octavia had struggled to make friends since the move.

Then he forced Clarke and his sister from his mind, very aware that he was standing in a stranger’s room in only his underwear.

Turning to the wine bottle, he sank the tip of the scissors into the side of the cork, hoping to loosen it or pop it out. A couple of times, he tried cutting at the cork, before stabbing at twisting. It was as he dug the point of one of the blades into the tiny crack between cork and glass did his hand slip.

Pain bloomed from the palm of his hand, where the blade has sliced open a gash. Bellamy swore under his breath, dumping the scissors (dripping with blood) and the bottle on the desk. He gave a quick glance towards the still sleeping girl as he tried to shake the pain from his hand. All this did, though, was flick blood on the carpet.

Swearing again, he gathered up his clothes, holding them under the arm with the injured hand and turned to the door. Using his free hand, he opened it, before swearing once more and turning back to take the wine with him.

He was definitely going to need alcohol now.

Having lived in an apartment, instead of the dorms, he had no clue where the bathroom was – just that it was separate to their rooms. Still in his underwear, he jogged down the hallway, aware of the red that splattered the carpet behind him.

Bellamy turned around, groaning, before choosing the left hand corridor. When he came to a dead end, he rolled his eyes and turned back, taking the right corner instead.

Eventually, he arrived at the bathroom. It was co-ed, and he used his ass and back to open the door as he went in. There were no sounds – no one taking a shit, no one at the sinks, no one doing it in the showers. Bellamy felt lucky for that one.

He dumped the wine bottle on the side, in between two sinks, before doing the same with his clothes on the other side. Then he turned on the cold tap and thrusted his hand underneath the water.

“Fuck,” he said aloud. The searing pain was only added to by the cold of the water and he gritted his teeth, knowing this was his own fault. He should have just stuck it out until morning in the bed. Could have gotten a nice night’s sleep – maybe even learnt her name the next day. But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Now, he was in an unfamiliar part of campus, in a co-ed bathroom mostly naked, a gaping cut in his hand and blood that doesn’t stop turning the clear water a murky red. He should have just stayed home with Clarke and watched The Princess Bride, or something. She wouldn’t let him get into messes like this.

A small part of his mind – just big enough to make a difference, just small enough that he could block it out if it ever brought the event up again – decided, then and there, that within the next year, he was going to change. He had to, he realised. It wasn’t even November, yet, and he was already slipping back into the patterns he thought he’d left to the weeks after his mother’s death.

It hadn’t been six months yet. She was still freshly buried, and he hoped that she’d made friends. He’d moved his sister three hours away from where she grew up, so he could have the education he wanted with his friends. Never mind there being a perfectly decent college in Ark. No, he caused these problems – so he was going to man up and make the most of it now.

And that meant not sleeping with every girl who’d give him the time of day (apart from the one he’d ask it from) and looking after his sister. Not just leaving her to the only friend who’d do him a favour.

It sounded reasonable in his head, but he didn’t know if it would be forgotten by morning. Bellamy hoped not. Then, he heard the sound of the door opening and footsteps on the tiles.

“What the fuck,” a voice said from behind him, and Bellamy swivelled his head to look. It was just another guy, half-dressed but actually wearing trousers, unlike the older Blake. “Have I died and gone to gay-heaven?” He asked. Bellamy snorted, pulling his hand out from under the tap.

“Sorry man, don’t think so,” he replied. “Even if it was gay-heaven, I would ask why it would be in the bathroom.” The guy smiled at him with a shrug.

“Well, all the best hook ups happen in the shower,” he said. Bellamy rolled his eyes, placing his hand down on the counter to lean on, before gasping with a wince.

“Fuck,” he said, shaking his hand once more. With the cold of the water, Bellamy had almost forgotten the pain.

“Shit, that looks bad,” the guy said. Bellamy nodded. “How’d you do it?”

“Tried to open a wine bottle with scissors,” he replied, much to the other’s amusement. He stepped forward to assess the cut.

“My room’s just down the hall,” he said. “I’ve got a first aid kit. Let me pee and I’ll fix you up.” Bellamy shrugged, thinking it was a better deal than going home, still bleeding, and let the stranger go pee.

While he could still hear the stream, the guy started to talk again.

“What’s your name, by the way?” He asked from inside the cubicle. Bellamy raised an eyebrow, but it wasn’t the worst thing to happen that day, so he answered.

“Bellamy.”

“Cool.” The stream stopped and there was a flush, before the door opened and he stepped out. “I’m Monty.” Monty washed his hands, before picking up the wine bottle from the counter and gesturing for Bellamy to follow. Bellamy grabbed his clothes and padded along, bare foot.

Monty was true to his word, and his door was only three away. Bellamy followed him into the darkened room, only alight by the computer screen, with a pause on a multiplayer Call Of Duty match. As Monty passed the light switch, he flicked it on, earning a moan of protest from the guy sprawled out on the left hand bed.

“Mon- what did you do that for?” He complained. Bellamy stayed focused on Monty, while his new friend rummaged through the drawer.

“So I can see, idiot,” Monty replied. With a flourish, he produced a small first aid box. “Sit,” he instructed Bellamy. As he did, the roommate/friend seemed to look at him for the first time.

“Who’s this?” He asked.

“Bellamy,” Monty replied.

“Sounds familiar,” the guy wondered, almost to himself.

“I know, right?” Monty said, opening the box and searching through it. He produced a spray and with no warning aimed it at Bellamy’s hand.

“Ah!” He cried, swiping his hand away from the stinging sensation. “What was that for?”

“So you don’t get infected,” Monty answered, rolling his eyes and grabbing Bellamy’s hand back. He held him by the wrist so he couldn’t move, but it didn’t stop Bellamy from complaining. “Baby,” Monty muttered.

“So why are you naked?” The guy from the bed asked, deciding to drop the fact that he knew the name from somewhere (and let’s be honest, there’s not a surplus of Bellamys running around).

“I hooked up with a girl on this floor before cutting my hand open,” Bellamy replied gruffly as Monty dropped the spray bottle back into the box.

“This will probably need stitches,” he announced. Bellamy shook his head.

“Just bandage it up,” he replied. “I’m not having you sewing me up at almost midnight.” Monty rolled his eyes, searching for the bandages. He placed the roll of them onto Bellamy’s leg as he shut the box.

“It won’t stay together, though,” the boy from the bed warned. “You need something to hold it together so it won’t bleed everywhere.” Bellamy sighed, knowing the guy was right.

“I don’t know, selotape it up?” He suggested. The look in the friends’ eyes was a little suspicious, but they complied anyway. The guy from the bed produced a roll of duct tape, and Monty went about taping his hand up.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked as he stuck the end onto Bellamy’s skin.

“My best friend is an almost pre-med student,” he replied with a shrug. “If anything goes too wrong I’m sure she can fix it up.”

“An almost pre-med student?” Monty asked, going around his hand with the tape.

“Yeah, she decided not to. But her mum’s a doctor, so I’m sure she’ll know something.” The other guy snorted as Monty cut the tape and started to bandage up the hand over it – just in case. When he was done, Bellamy thanked him.

“No problem – it’s what I do.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow.

“You introduce yourself while peeing and tape up people’s hands?” He asked. Monty hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“Sounds about right,” he replied with a smile. As Bellamy went about putting his clothes on, Monty spoke to his friend.

“After this, I’m so going to kick your ass, Jasper.”

“Yeah, in your dreams,” Jasper replied. Bellamy froze, recognising the names.

“Wait,” he said. “You’re Jasper?” Jasper nodded. “My friend Clarke has been talking about you two like nonstop for a month.” Jasper and Monty broke out into grins.

“You know Clarke? Isn’t she awesome?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “She’s the best friend I was talking about.”

“Bellamy!” Jasper all but yelled. “That’s where we know your name from! _He’s_ Bellamy!” He shouted at Monty. Monty laughed and Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

“Clarke talks about you all the time.” Admittedly, when he left that room, three hours later, after destroying the two of them at Call of Duty, he felt a lot better than when he came in.

(When Clarke took a look at his hand the next morning, and spent half an hour peeling the tape off from the flaps of skin, he felt a bit worse again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading - I'm loving all the comments and kudos, as well as the subscriptions. Remember that you can subscribe to this story and receive emails whenever it's updated.  
> If you want to prompt me or talk to me on tumblr, where I'll be happy to scream with you, the username is bowlingfornerds so take a look there.  
> Thanks, guys!


	11. Counting Down The Days Gone By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller meets Monty and Jasper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yesterday I wrote notes saying 'oh yeah I'll totally update twice because the next chapter is so short'. Well, I didn't. I forgot. So I'm here now. With the exceptionally short chapter. And hopefully (someone remind me in the comments, please) a second chapter later this afternoon.  
> Pray on it.  
> Chapter title from Royal Blood's 'Blood Hands'. If you haven't noticed yet, the chapter titles have absolutely nothing to do with chapters. I just like the lines.

Miller met Jasper and Monty at a bar, like regular people. He didn’t meet them during a match of Marco Polo, and he sure as hell wasn’t stupid enough to try opening a wine bottle with a pair of scissors. No, Miller made plans to meet Clarke and Bellamy, and Clarke dragged her friends along, too.

They met inside the Drop Ship – John Murphy’s uncle ran the place, and once Murphy introduced them when he was in town, once, the friends managed to get discounted drinks every visit. Needless to say, it was a favourite hangout spot.

He smiled to Bellamy and Clarke when they walked in and then to the strangers, talking excitedly in Clarke’s ear. He smiled a little more, a raised eyebrow at the newcomers. As if Bellamy knew exactly what he was thinking – and, let’s face it, he did – Bellamy laughed.

“I know right. It’s like you talk so little, she had to overcompensate.” Miller chuckled and Clarke rolled her eyes, making the introductions. The guy with goggles on his head (Miller didn’t question it) was called Jasper, and he was tall and lanky with a mischievous glint in his eye when he found out about the discounted drinks. The other was shorter, dark hair and admittedly, fairly cute. He was Monty, and Miller looked at him for a moment too long before ordering.

Of course, that meant that later, when Jasper and Monty were playing Clarke at pool (one game she was actually good at, and so they needed two on the team for a _chance_ at beating her) Bellamy grinned at him.

“I saw the way you looked at Monty,” he said in a sing song voice. “Someone has a crush.” Miller rolled his eyes.

“I’ve got a boyfriend, idiot,” he said. Bellamy sighed with a smile.

“I wouldn’t call that a boyfriend, I would call that a friend with benefits.” Miller shrugged.

“Same thing, really.”

“Really? Would Eva say that?” Miller had only told Bellamy and Clarke about the woman from the bathroom a month or two after it happened. And even then, it was because Eva had stayed longer than six hours. More like six weeks at that point, and a year, when they were standing in the bar. His friends liked Eva as much as he did, and she dispensed good advice for a low price of free (sometimes, if it was exceptionally good advice, she would ask for him to take the rubbish out or go buy milk).

“Eva would say something about young love and ask you to shut up,” Miller replied easily. Bellamy snorted.

“I think I should say something about young love, then,” he said. Miller shook his head.

“You talk about young love, and I’ll throw it right back at you with her Royal Highness over there.” Miller nodded towards Clarke, potting another ball and looked back to Bellamy, a sour expression on his face.

“I don’t like her,” Bellamy insisted.

“Bell – we’ve been talking through expressions since we were, what, seven year olds? I know the look on your face when you like someone.” Bellamy rolled his eyes. “I do.” His friend sighed, tilting his head back.

“We’re friends, Mill, we’re not going to date.” Miller shrugged.

“That’s your call. But don’t go denying the feelings entirely.” Bellamy eyed him for a moment.

“Eva’s really rubbed off on you, hasn’t she?” Miller grinned with a shrug.

“I like her. I don’t even remember my actual mum – but I’d like to think she was like Eva.” Bellamy had a soft smile on his face before looking back to Clarke. Miller noticed the expression didn’t change one little bit.


	12. This Is My Kingdom Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke goes home for the summer after her first year at TonDC University.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Imagine Dragons' 'Demon'.

Clarke huffed, flopping onto Bellamy’s sofa, at the end of the year. She was going home to Ark in a matter of minutes, and she really didn’t want to. For starters, since year eleven, her mother had been dating. And her most recent boyfriend – of six months, apparently – was Marcus Kane; the Chief of Police of Ark. She didn’t want to see him, and she didn’t want to see her mother having moved on. Yes, her mother being happy was a good thing (she told herself), and it had been almost twelve years since her father’s death.

Logically, there was no reason for Abby Griffin to have not moved on. Clarke was just stubborn.

Bellamy’s apartment was full of her friends, all ready to go home in the days after her. To her left, Miller sat silently, drumming his fingers on his leg. Clarke knew this to be him thinking – while the others might just assume boredom. Next to him, on the other side, was Monty, who had been shamelessly flirting for the past six months. And while Clarke and Bellamy were sure that Miller was at least slightly interested, he hadn’t really done anything to give Monty hope.

Monty just had buckets of hope anyway.

Lincoln was also sat in the armchair, having gotten closer to the group more recently. Octavia took an automatic liking to him, and Bellamy only agreed because he didn’t catch the looks his sister sent the older man, and Lincoln could protect Octavia from anything and anyone, so he didn’t mind if they hung out every now and again. Jasper was standing, leaning against the kitchen counter that divided it from the living room. And Bellamy and Octavia were also present, although they were staying, seeing as they’d sold off their old home a year beforehand.

“You better come visit,” she told them from her seat.

“Of course,” Bellamy replied easily. “I miss Ark, I’m not just going to never come back.”

“Because I can’t deal with a whole summer without you guys,” Clarke continued. “And Miller is great company and all – but he doesn’t understand the fun in stealing trolleys and riding them down the road.” Miller snorted.

“It was fun,” he protested quietly. “It just wasn’t when you rammed into a car.” Bellamy chuckled and Clarke grinned.

“Has Harper gone home already?” Monty asked from the other end of the sofa. Clarke nodded.

“Yesterday, yeah.”

“Are you rooming with her next year?” Monty continued. She shook her head.

“Nope, me and my buddy Linc are getting a flat,” she smiled. Lincoln nodded from his seat.

“I can’t believe I agreed to that,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, shush,” she replied. “I’m delightful.” Jasper pushed himself off the wall and sat on the arm of the sofa. Clarke looked up at him thoughtfully. “How did the date go last night?”

“Oh yeah!” Octavia cried. “How did that go?” Jasper was faced with lots of expectant smiles. He shrugged.

“Alright,” he said. Monty snorted.

“He complained about her for ages,” he said. “Apparently she eats with her mouth open, stole his food  _and_ his jacket.” Clarke raised her eyebrows.

“She stole your jacket?” Bellamy asked. Jasper nodded.

“Yeah – I did that thing where I gave her my jacket because she was cold, and she fucking kept it.” Clarke laughed and Octavia grinned.

“That’s her saying that she wants to see you again – getting the jacket is supposed to be an ulterior motive for asking her on a date,” she explained. Jasper rolled his eyes.

“I don’t _want_ another date with her. I _want_ my jacket back.” He looked to Lincoln hopefully, who shook his head and raised a hand.

“I have gone to one too many girls for you, to explain why you don’t like them,” he said. “I’m not getting your jacket back.” Jasper huffed, falling back against the back of the sofa.

“But you’re intimidating.” Lincoln gave him a look and Jasper rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll be cold forever then.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“You’ll find someone,” she promised.

“If I remember rightly,” he started in response. “You told me that _you_ would find someone for me.” Clarke scoffed.

“I have! I have found lots of girls for you and you didn’t want any one of them! I have a very limited amount of girls left!” She cried.

“Ah, then you have more options,” he smiled. Clarke rolled her eyes again.

“I have one more, but she’s like the exact opposite of you and my last friend who’s a girl who I haven’t asked to date you blindly,” she explained.

“But you have one more,” he clarified. Sighing, Clarke nodded.

“I do. But it’ll be a while before she arrives. I need to actually start talking to her again, build the friendship back up, and then ask her to go out with you.” Bellamy laughed from the floor on the other side of the room.

“That’s the plan?”

“Do you have a better one?” She retorted. Bellamy shrugged.

“Let fate weigh in and shove Jasper into a bar like everyone else?” He suggested.

“No,” Jasper immediately denied. “I’m terrible in bars. They expect me to buy their drinks if I’m hitting on them – I’m a poor kid. Absolutely broke.” The room broke out in laughter again, and Clarke quickly excused herself, hoping to catch one last moment of quiet before the drive home with Miller. The car ride was going to be quiet, sure. But a different type of quiet.

Clarke let herself into Bellamy’s room down the hall and looked around. She recognised it all so easily; the walls with his best drawings of her as a dinosaur tacked up, the stains on the carpet that was either wine or blood - but everyone was sure it was the latter, the bedding with Buzz Lightyear covering it from Miller's present for him last year. It was all one hundred percent Bellamy. Even all the way down to the organised desk.

“Snooping, are we Princess?” A voice asked from behind her. She didn’t need to look to know it was Bellamy.

“Just soaking it all in before going home for _three_ _months_ ,” she said, turning to see him in the doorway. “Ark isn’t going to be the same without you.” Bellamy smiled a sad smile and Clarke wished in the moment that she could kiss it away from his face. But that would be stepping over the lines of their friendship and she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t push him away by trying to bring him closer.

“I’ll visit,” he promised. “But maybe I can finally get some clearing up done around here without you complaining that I can’t throw stuff away.” Clarke laughed.

“You can’t throw memories away,” she told him. “There’s like a rule against it.” Bellamy rolled his eyes, stepping further into the room.

“Memories like what?” He asked. Clarke sat on the end of the bed.

“Like the time you asked me to prom,” she said with a smile. “And I had to go to the nurse? Remember that?” Bellamy grinned as he opened his wardrobe.

“I remember that. It was only a year ago,” he replied. Clarke shrugged and watched as he pulled out a box from the bottom of the cupboard. On the side, in permanent marker, said her name. CLARKE.

“What’s that?” She asked. Bellamy dropped the box onto the bed next to her.

“The memories I won’t throw away,” he said. He stuck his hand in and pulled out a white ping pong ball, placing it into her hand. She ran her thumb over the capital letters of the word ‘prom?’ and grinned. Then, carefully placing it onto the duvet beside her, she started to look through the box.

At the top was the same photo she kept in a frame by her bed – of her, Bellamy and Miller at prom, each flanking her sides.  The one underneath was a moment later, when Miller and Bellamy had shared a secret look and suddenly picked her up, Bellamy holding her torso and Miller holding her legs. The photo is of them grinning and Clarke laughing in surprise. She smiled at it now.

“So you’re not going to chuck this out?” She asked, gesturing to the box. Bellamy shook his head, holding out of the copy of _A View From The Bridge_ , where Clarke had written on the first page who died at the end. She rifled through it a bit more and found cinema tickets, stones from the beach, a wrapped, expired condom, train tickets, photo booth strips, receipts from shopping trips. She grinned at the memories, piled into the box.

“I’d never chuck you out,” Bellamy told her. She looked up and saw sincerity in his eyes. She watched as he glanced at her lips, and she couldn’t help but do the same in return. He was Bellamy. Beautiful, sweet Bellamy. Her best friend – but she knew they could be something more. They didn’t move, just stared until the moment was broken by Miller’s voice.

“I don’t want to cockblock,” he started from the doorway. “But if we don’t go now, Clarke, we’ll hit the rush hour traffic.” Clarke nodded, standing up to go and averting her eyes from Bellamy’s. Miller took one look at the photo in her hands and smiled, pulling her in for a one-armed hug.

“You were heavier than you looked,” he told her with a smile. She half-heartedly slapped him on the shoulder before carefully placing the photo back in the box. Bellamy followed the two out, and the entire group came down to the car with them. Lincoln promised to tell her the minute the landlord phoned, and Jasper and Monty swore on their lives to visit. She gave a hug to each one, squeezing Bellamy tighter than the rest before settling in to the passenger seat for the three hour ride.

She knew she’d made a mistake about driving home with Miller the moment ‘Friday’ by Rebecca Black started off the playlist he’d made for the journey. But she laughed and sang along all the same.

 

When she returned home, Miller helped her unload her stuff from the car, and she gave him a hug before he drove off home. She lugged her things inside by herself, her mother still at work. Then, she made herself dinner and sat in wait, in the kitchen, until almost ten, when Abby Griffin got home.

Her mother enveloped her in a bone crushing hug the moment she saw her before holding her at arm’s length.

“You look thinner – have you been eating properly?” Abby asked. Clarke smiled.

“Yes, Mum,” she replied.

“And what about Nathan and Bellamy? Have they been eating properly?” Clarke knew her mother didn’t care about Bellamy or his well-being, but she appreciated her adding of him into the sentence.

“They’re fine, too, Mum.”

“Oh, good. Are they back already?” Abby went and put the kettle on now, as she spoke and Clarke sat at the island again, saving her document on her laptop and coming out of it.

“Miller is – he drove me home. Bellamy’s staying in Ground.” Abby raised her eyebrows.

“Oh yes, they moved out there, didn’t they?” Clarke nodded. “And his sister? Is she doing well?”

“Yeah, I think so.” It went on like that for a little while, before Abby made a brief slip up when Clarke asked what she’d been up to.

“We went to that exhibition that was on in the gallery a few weeks ago,” she said, a dreamy look in her eye.

“We?” Clarke asked. Abby faltered before nodding.

“Yes. Marcus and I.” _Oh_ , Clarke thought _. The boyfriend._ The possible future step-dad. The Chief of Police who wouldn’t approve of her taking trolleys and riding them through the streets, or getting high, or drunk, or loud. Not that her mother approved. But still.

“How’s that going?” Clarke asked.

“Good, it’s going well.” Abby must have caught the look in Clarke’s eye, because she sighed, reaching out and grabbing her daughter’s hands. “Honey, I’m getting old,” she said. “When you’re old, you’ll take all the love you can get. When I was young I could choose any man I wanted-“

“And you did.”

“Yes, honey. Jake was my perfect man. But he’s gone, and he has been for almost twelve years. I need to find someone else who can keep me company now you’re gone, too.” Clarke was silent for a moment.

“And you think Kane could be that person?” She asked. Abby nodded, a small smile on her face.

“Okay. You should invite him round for dinner so I can meet him properly.” Abby stopped this time.

“Properly?” She asked. “Like, you’ve met him before?” Clarke took her hands away, closing her laptop and placing the mug on the side as she tried to act nonchalant. “ _Clarke_ ,” Abby warned.

“It was nothing!” Clarke told her with the wave of a hand. “Just a mild drunk and disorderly thing a year or so ago. He let us off with a warning.” As Abby Griffin rose to express her shock and disappointment, Clarke grabbed her laptop and sprinted up the stairs, yelling the excuse of unpacking.

Two days later, Marcus Kane joined them for dinner. He recognised Clarke, but he didn’t bring up the charge that he dropped, and Clarke realised that he was perfectly lovely for her mother, and wouldn’t mind seeing him around the house – even if he wasn’t her father.


	13. Got That Obsession With Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second year at university, Clarke/Bellamy friend-times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Currently marathoning 'The Sleepover Club' even though it's 2002-cringy just because Eliza Taylor starred in it. Wish me luck and experience me live-tweeting the time on my twitter - bowlingfornerds.
> 
> Chapter title from 'You're So Dark' by Arctic Monkeys

In the second year of university, as Octavia started her A-levels, and Bellamy struggled under his work load, Clarke, Monty, Jasper and Lincoln moved into his block of flats. Harper had moved in with another friend, but still came round when invited – so Clarke had called upon her man-beast of a friend from Art to be her roommate.

Bellamy wasn’t afraid of the guy, but the way his sister looked at him was a little annoying, now he started to notice. Even so, Lincoln had made his way into the group, and because Clarke liked him, Bellamy liked him. (Slightly less, though, every time Octavia needed something from the top shelf and Lincoln just happened to be around.)

Clarke and Lincoln had moved in across the hall – their apartment a waste land of charcoal and paint. They’d lost the security deposit within a week after deciding to tie balloons filled with paint onto a canvas, and use darts to pop them. The carpet, nor the wall, was ever the same.

Miller was living a road away in an apartment with John Murphy – the same one who had made Clarke throw a frog across the science lab. He hadn’t gotten into university there, but had moved when his uncle needed someone to run the Drop Ship. He wasn’t as big of an asshole as Bellamy remembered, but the first time he was invited to games night, he crushed them all at Donkey Kong, and Clarke threw a paper plate at the back of his head, he’d said the fatal words:

“Wow, still throwing things. But I see these plates are less fragile than dead frogs.” Which meant that everyone had to be recounted with the tale of Science, and why Clarke wasn’t doing Pre-Med. Even so, Murphy was invited back, if only to teach them how to pass the levels they couldn’t beat.

Next door, though, was Jasper and Monty. Their apartment looked out over the road like his did, filled with gadgets and chemicals he wasn’t allowed to touch. Their secret moonshine operation was also very risky to be near, so their home was very rarely used for movie night. Over the year they’d joined the friendship group, Clarke had set Jasper up with just about every female on the planet. And even a couple of guys – just to see what would happen. (What would happen would be that Jasper would bring them home and walk into his bedroom, before calling Monty to deal with it.)

(Monty usually got laid on those nights.)

Jasper did have one or two admirers, though. Okay – one. Her name was Charlotte and she often appeared outside in the hallway, standing by his neighbour’s door. Bellamy wasn’t really sure what Charlotte was up to – she was in the year below, passably cute, but had been rejected by Jasper time and time again.

However, it had never before gotten on his nerves like this.

He and Clarke were lounging across the sofa, having argued already about the fact that there’s no food in the entire apartment. Their legs were crossing each other so much that he doesn’t know where he ended and she began. He tried not to think about how he liked that thought. Octavia was at a sleepover, and Clarke’s roommate, Lincoln, was sort of _having_ one. His girlfriend, Anya, had been coming around more and more recently, and while Clarke remains definite that the noises are her, not him, she really doesn’t like to be around to see him in the morning.

Hence, Clarke in his apartment at eleven at night.

(Okay, so she’s there even when Lincoln doesn’t have his girlfriend round. But still.)

The film they were watching finished and they drifted off into a sort of sleep, but still being awake. He wouldn’t ever admit that he liked her, but seeing her, sprawled out over his sofa was kind of attractive – _very attractive_ – and having her fingertips drifting circles around his shin that rested across her legs was exceptionally relaxing.

“Why do you call me ‘Princess’?” She asked, breaking the silence with her quiet question. Bellamy swallowed, shutting his eyes and sighing.

“I’ve already told you. It was the way you looked on that first day.”

“There’s got to be more to it,” she insisted half-heartedly.

“There’s not.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Bellamy sighed again. His three reasons for calling her ‘Princess’ were going to become public information if he wasn’t careful. But when she stopped moving her fingers in the gentle patterns across his skin, he groaned.

“Tell me and I’ll continue,” she said. Her voice was sleepy, but it still had that twinge to it, like she was grinning on the inside. What’s two out of three, right?

“It was because I already knew who you were,” he told her. “Remember how I said that one time about the fact that you’re rich and I’m not?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s like that. The second you said your name I knew what family you came from. I knew about your mum’s job, and I knew about your dad-“ she stiffened a little and he opened his eyes to find her looking at him already. “But don’t get me wrong, it meant the world that you trusted me with that information. Seriously.” She relaxed a little and he sighed. “I knew you were rich, and I knew that you were kind of the princess of Ark – weren’t you destined to marry that Jaha kid and have lots of Jaha babies?” Clarke snorted.

“Something like that.”

“Well, yeah. I knew that already. So I called you Princess.” Clarke eyed him for a moment, and he sort of knew that she had caught on to him having other reasons for the nickname. But she didn’t probe further.

“You know,” she said instead. “I could still follow that destiny of Jaha babies.” Bellamy laughed.

“Jaha babies? You? Come on, you’d eat him alive if he asked you out.” Clarke grinned.

“But what a way to go, huh?” Bellamy grinned back at her, and suddenly they were silenced by the yelling from outside.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Bellamy sat up and looked around. Of course he recognised the line, but who the hell was saying it?

“Thou art more lovely and more temperate!” Clarke was sitting up now, too, and both of them were turned to the window. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date!” The two of them stood up, slowly making their way to the window.

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines!” Bellamy moved the curtain a little so he could peek out of the window. “And often is his gold complexion dimmed!” Clarke looked around the other end of it. “And every fair from fair sometime declines!” Charlotte, Jasper’s admirer/stalker, was standing on the grass outside the building, yelling. “By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed!”

“The fuck,” Clarke whispered.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade-“

“Dear God,” Bellamy said.

“Nor shall death brag thou wand-rest in his shade-“

“Should we stop her?” Clarke asked.

“When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st!”

“I have no idea,” Bellamy replied.

“So long as men can breath-“

“I think she’s near the end,” Clarke told him.

“Or eyes can see! So long lives this, and this gives life to thee!” They stood in silence for a moment, all staring. Charlotte looked up expectantly, waiting for Jasper to appear at his window. Bellamy sighed.

“I’ve got to put her out her misery,” he said.

“You’ll embarrass her,” Clarke replied, shaking her head.

“It’s more embarrassing to yell at a building where all the tenants are watching _but_ the one person you’re yelling to,” he reasoned. Clarke sighed.

“Go on.” Bellamy took a deep breath before yanking back the curtains. He watched as Charlotte’s eyes flicked from Jasper’s window to his. Before he could change his mind, he shoved the window open and leaned out, his elbows resting on the window sill.

“Hey Charlotte,” he called out semi-casually, semi-cautious.

“Hey!” She replied. “Is Jasper there! I have a poem to read to him!”

“I think you’ve already said the poem – Sonnet 18, right?” She nodded excitedly and Bellamy nodded to himself, taking a breath. “Well, I think you should go home.” Her smile faltered.

“What? Why?” Bellamy glanced back at Clarke, who nodded encouragingly.

“You’ve been yelling to an empty apartment,” he told her. Charlotte froze.

“What?”

“Jasper’s gone back to his hometown for the week, and his roommate’s gone, too. Literally no one is there. You’ve been yelling for the rest of us to hear, though!” Bellamy didn’t know if that was supportive or not. Clarke appeared next to him in the window, edging him along a little.

“Yeah, your rhythm is really good!” She called out. “Maybe next time you should just do it on a stage, you know? Not at night? And not when the guy you like isn’t around?” Charlotte coughed, looking from them to the ground. “I told you we’d embarrass her,” Clarke muttered to Bellamy. He shrugged – better she know, right?

“But, I think,” he said to Charlotte. “You should probably just give up on Jasper.”

“Why would I do that?” She replied. “We went out and we had a great time!”

“Yeah, but he’s not interested in you!” Clarke said. “Plus, since your dinner date, he’s gone out with like four other girls.” Charlotte coughed again, looking around. Bellamy glanced at the other windows and he could bet that people were listening in.

“We’re not exclusive,” Charlotte told them, half-heartedly.

“You’re not _dating_ ,” Bellamy corrected. The girl outside nodded a couple of times before looking around again.

“I think – I think I’m gonna go,” she told them.

“Probably best,” Bellamy agreed. Charlotte didn’t say another word to them before she turned and wandered off down the street. Bellamy and Clarke did the kind thing and shut the window and the curtain again, instead of watching the walk of shame.

Clarke grinned when the room was covered in darkness again.

“Wasn’t that fun?” She asked.

“I can’t believe Jasper had to deal with that,” Bellamy muttered. Clarke shrugged before yawning.

“I’m going to crash in Octavia’s room,” she informed him, giving him a quick hug before heading to his sister’s room. “Night.”

“Night,” he replied quietly. As he walked back to his own room, he couldn’t help but wish that they’d moved back to the sofa, where she could go back to tracing lines on his skin with her fingers.


	14. Have You Seen My Hands, Just Look At Them Shake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas, Bellamy, Abby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the Gaslight Anthem's '45'. Still fairly Clarke and Bellamy themed.   
> (If you collect the songs I've been using for the titles, you'll create a great Murder Couple/Delinquent Soldiers playlist.)

Clarke was having a nice time, the week before she would have to return home to Ark for Christmas. There, she knew that she would be spending Christmas with her mother, and her mother’s boyfriend, Marcus Kane. Kane was alright – he’d forgiven her for the drunk and disorderly thing, and they both acted as if it was just between them, and that Abby Griffin didn’t already know. She was even looking forward to seeing him, just a little bit. And maybe that was partly because he made her mother happy, but maybe it was also because she and Octavia had spent the past three months finding him gag gifts – such as the ‘Cops Are Coming, Warn-A-Brother’ mug for him to use at work, and the singing tie that made noises whenever you pressed the button on it.

But she also knew that returning to Ark from Ground would signal the assault from Wells. They had barely kept in touch over the past year, and during the summer he’d made sure to spend every moment with her, just to make sure that he could win her back from the arms of Bellamy Blake.

“We’re best friends,” he reminded her every day. “Best friends can make it through anything.”

“Yeah,” she’d mumble to herself. “Even not wanting to be around each other.” In all honesty, she wasn’t a fan of Wells because he’d changed. He wasn’t the seven year old that she remembered so well, and even though they’d seen each other in the years she’d been in Polis – it wasn’t the same.

He wasn’t the same.

 _She_ wasn’t the same.

It was a no brainer that they wouldn’t get along as well.

Anyway, she was having a nice time, soaking in the ability to watch the television without anyone telling her that it was rotting her brain, and being able to live in the same place as one of her best friends who wouldn’t ask if she’s eating enough. Lincoln was out with a few friends (not Anya, though, because she’d mysteriously stopped coming over, and he’d informed her that he broke up with her.)

(He wouldn’t tell her why.)

(Octavia was over the moon when she found out.)

Then there was rushed knocking at the door, and Bellamy’s voice. He tried to come in but the door had already been locked, so Clarke sighed, wrapping her blanket around her tighter and headed over. The second she unlocked the door, she was met with Bellamy Blake’s worried face.

“Clarke, Clarke, Clarke,” he said. “I need help. Like, lots of it. Actually, thirty three pieces of help – single spaced.” She checked the time, knowing that he had to be in class in about seven minutes. And class was a five minute walk away.

“Bell – slow down. What do you need?” All of a sudden, he was down on his knees, hands clasped together, begging.

“My printer broke and I have an assignment due in first thing today and please let me use your printer, please please please.” Clarke laughed, finding it amazing that he even asked. That, after _four_ _years_ , he had to ask to use her printer. Part of her registered the noise of a door opening and closing from down the hall, but she didn’t think twice.

“Of course, Bell,” she grinned. He looked so relieved.

“Oh my goodness!” The old lady from down the hall had her hands to her cheeks. “You two just got engaged! This is so fantastic!” She hobbled past as she spoke, not even registering the dumbstruck faces of the twenty year olds in the hall. “I won’t bother you anymore – I was always rooting for you two!”

The second she had turned the corner, Clarke laughed. Bellamy stood up, dusting his knees off from the dirt of the floor and nodded, forgetting his urgency.

“Apparently, we’re getting married,” Clarke announced.

“Apparently so,” Bellamy agreed.

“Don’t you have an assignment to print?” She asked. The light switch turned on in Bellamy’s head and he rushed back into his flat to press the print button, before running back through her open door to catch the paper.

As he stood, waiting, Clarke wondered through the living room.

“We should have a Fall wedding,” she told him, flopping onto the sofa. “You know, outside; still warm but with the pretty colours of the leaves.” Bellamy gave her a raised eyebrow, but didn’t stop her. She smiled, as if she hadn’t imagined their wedding before. “Octavia would be a bridesmaid – I feel like she would kill me if she wasn’t one.” Bellamy snorted. “And considering you’re my best friend, my maid of honour would obviously either be Octavia, Miller – though you’d probably take him-“

“Damn right.”

“Or Lincoln. Like, man of honour. Or, second best man,” she continued. “He would look great in a dress.” Bellamy chuckled as the last of the paper printed. “And the colour scheme would fit with the browning leaves, you know? Oranges, pinks and stuff.”

“Lincoln in a pink dress would be super hot,” Bellamy agreed. He shoved the papers into a binder, before putting it into his bag. “I need to go, you keep planning,” he said. As he passed her on the sofa, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head before running out the door.

“Bye!” She called after him, before letting herself sit in the silence for a moment. Slowly, she rose and shut the front door. He hadn’t proposed – she knew that. She was fully aware. But it surprised her that she’d thought so much about a hypothetical wedding. Of course, she hadn’t mentioned the self-written vows or first dance to Christina Perri’s ‘A Thousand Years’ – mainly because that’s how long she’d have to wait for that reality to ever feel possible.

Sighing, she sat herself back down on the sofa, knowing she would have to pack soon.

 

 

Less than a week later, she was sitting in her old living room in Ark. Her mother had arrived home early and Marcus was going to be coming round later. The moment Abby Griffin saw her daughter, she started fiddling with the wedding ring that was on a chain around her neck. Clarke knew that to mean she was nervous.

When she used to wear it on her finger, she would twist it like she did now. She stopped wearing it on her finger when it became a problem during surgery, and took to wearing it around her neck. It stayed there even after Jake’s death. Although, during the summer, Clarke had noticed that she forgot to wear it sometimes and it was left on her dressing table.

Abby paced in front of Clarke for a little while, as her daughter watched, bored.

“Mum – could you stop?” She asked. Abby nodded.

“It’s just that what I’ve got to say is very, very important.”

“I know – Mum, you can tell me, come on.” Abby Griffin paced a little more before looking to her daughter. Clarke watched, eyebrows raised.

“Clarke, what I have to say – well it’s been eating me up for years. And you need to know the truth.” Clarke’s mother nodded to herself a couple of times. Clarke couldn’t think what she would have to say. What happened years ago? Clarke drew a blank. “Clarke, it’s about your father.” Ah, there it is.

Clarke’s breath caught in her throat, and she didn’t notice herself leaning forward. Abby Griffin swallowed.

“It’s my fault he’s gone,” she said, her voice full of hurt. Clarke stopped breathing, she was sure. There was no air coming in or out, and it was as if she was frozen. It was her mother’s fault. But- But-

“How?” Clarke asked, strangled. Abby coughed, not being able to meet her daughter’s eyes.

“When the paramedics came – they looked in the car and I was alright. I was okay, and I knew Jake was barely breathing-“ Abby took ragged breaths, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “And they called in to ask if we could hear them and I said I could and I wanted to get out. They looked from me to your father and they took me out first because I asked them to. They should have gotten him out first, and if they had, if they had, he would have lived. Those minutes that weren’t focused on him cost him his life.”

Clarke swallowed silently. “It’s my fault, honey. He died because of me.” Tears pricked at her eyes and Clarke blinked to get rid of them. She took deep breaths, staring at the photo on the wall, taken when she was six, and happy with parents who loved each other. The three of them, captured in black and white, smiling, happy, a family.

Not whatever this was.

Clarke rose silently, before turning on her heel and walking to her room. She was done with the emotions – she was blank. There was nothing anymore, and she didn’t know why. She should be furious, but she was sure that would come in due time.

She stared at her suitcase, leaning at the foot of her bed, and she looked away again. Clarke crawled under the covers and let the tears run down her passive face. Her mouth felt too dry and her chest felt too heavy. He died because of her. Because of her. Because of her mother.

When Abby came to check on her only daughter, Clarke pretended to be asleep, and forced herself not to wince at her mother’s kiss upon her forehead. Then, she waited until midnight hit before getting out of bed, knowing she wouldn’t be sleeping for a while anyway. She went to her suitcase and took out the presents she’d brought with her before zipping up the bag again.

Clarke toed on her shoes before taking her things downstairs. She placed the gift for Marcus under the unlit Christmas tree and kept her mother’s gripped in her hand as she walked out the front door, suitcase dragging behind her. As she went down the road, she dumped the present in the first bin she passed, before continuing on to the train station.

She would text Miller in the morning, she decided, to say that he wouldn’t have to drive her back to Ground. She would already be there. And after the two hours in the train station, waiting, and the two and a half hours on the train, and the thirty minutes of walking, Clarke couldn’t face her apartment where no one was there to tell her that the television was rotting her brain, and one of her best friends who wouldn’t ask if she’s eating enough.

So she knocked on Bellamy’s door, knowing that he would answer, because Octavia could sleep through anything. And the moment he opened, an annoyed expression plastered on his face, she dove into his arms. His voice calmed her crying and his arms wound tightly around her body.

“Come on, Princess,” he told her, as they knelt on the floor in the open doorway, her tears wetting the t-shirt he had hastily pulled on. “How about we go to the sofa, I make you some breakfast, and you can tell me about our wedding?” She cried into his shirt, nodding, thankful for everything that was, and would ever be, Bellamy Blake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually really like this chapter. So, I hope you guys did too. Please tell me in the comments what you thought - Clarke's life has changed once more and the next few chapters are going to follow new characters joining and the way they affect Miller, Clarke and Bellamy's lives.


	15. I Feel Like I Died, And Went To Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy meets Wick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a little worried that by adding more characters, I'm taking away from the central three people - but people meet people. They have to. I can't write six years of someone's life without them meeting new people.
> 
> Also, we're like half way through now! I plotted out all the chapters in advance, and there's about thirty in total (though I can't be bothered to count them) - so we're half way along. Thanks so much for sticking by the story this far, please talk to me in the comments and tell me what you thought!
> 
> Chapter title from Tonight Alive's 'The Fire' - still nothing to do with the chapter at hand, but another addition to the kick ass playlist I've been forming throughout the story for you guys.

Bellamy was working at the student health centre to help pay for the apartment. He got money every month to help look after his sister, and the loans from the university were helping, but he never had enough. To be fair, he didn’t really tell his friends this. They’d probably guessed.

So he was working at the bar, The Drop Ship, with Murphy some nights, and spent time on reception in the student health centre other days. It was there that he met Kyle Wick.

On the Saturday, as Bellamy was typing up his essay in early January, a man with dirty blond hair and a limp came into the centre. He gave the room a look around before deciding that Bellamy was most likely to help and rang the bell three times. Bellamy raised an eyebrow, tearing his eyes from the Romans to the man in front of him.

“Yeah?” He asked. Wick coughed.

“Yeah my ankle is kind of bleeding and I don’t know what happened but it hurts,” the man in front of him announced. Bellamy stood up to take a look over the counter, and sure enough, his ankle was soaked in red and there was a slight trail on the white of the floor, from the door to reception.

“Um, sure. Take a seat,” Bellamy said. He didn’t know first aid, and he was lucky that his job didn’t involve any of it. Instead, he picked up a clipboard with the forms and took them over to Wick, who filled them in quickly.

“So-“ Bellamy looked at the forms. “Kyle, you have no idea how you did that to your ankle?” He shrugged.

“First, call me Wick. Kyle is what parents and girlfriends call me, and I’m fairly sure you’re neither of them,” Wick replied. “Second, I kind of know what I did. But it involved scaling a few trees and landing on my head – so I’m not as sure.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

“I would mention the whole head thing on the form,” he said. “That’s probably important to write down.” In front of him, Wick thought about it for a moment before nodding.

“You’re probably right.”

Two days later, he was back. Wick still walked with a limp after being stitched up, but this time he came in with something else to amuse Bellamy with.

“Hey, Blake,” Wick said, leaning on the counter. (Wick had an affinity for calling people by their last names.) “I need one of those forms, but I don’t think I can fill it out by myself.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows, sitting back in his chair and focusing on the blond, not his Roman mythology paper.

“What in God’s name did you do this time?” He asked. Wick shrugged.

“I was incapacitated, because of the ankle,” he said. “And so I’ve been playing Xbox for like, thirty three hours. And, well, I broke my thumbs. I think. They hurt a lot and I can’t move them.” Bellamy snorted, pulling out the forms and standing so Wick could instruct him on the answers.

Half an hour later, he emerged from the clinic office with his thumbs taped up and to his hands. Bellamy stood to lean on his side of the desk as Wick approached.

“What’d they say?” Wick shrugged.

“Fractured. Nothing big.”

“So, you’re aware that you can’t walk properly, and now you can’t use your hands, right?” He asked, an amused smile on his face.

“Ah,” Wick said, trying to point at Bellamy but failing because of the tape. “But the ankle should heal within two weeks, as do the hands. I’ll be fine. Apart from doing my course work – because that’s all very much hand-work.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow.

“Art major?” Wick snorted.

“Engineering. I’m building an engine that runs on water to fuel a car made of natural resources,” he told him, a proud smirk on his face. Bellamy suddenly remembered Clarke’s father – environmental engineer – and knew the two men would have gotten along.

“Are you going environmental?” He asked. Wick nodded.

“Thought I might as well – dying planet, and all.” Then, Wick was gone. Bellamy only had small pieces of this man’s life, but he was intrigued all the same.

It turned out that he didn’t need to wait very long to find out anything more about Kyle Wick, because he was back in the health centre only four days later. Bellamy snorted at the sight of him.

“What the hell did you do now? You’re literally incapable of doing anything.” Wick smirked, rolling his eyes.

“You underestimate me. This is just a bad week,” he replied. “I’m going to need you to fill out my form again.” Bellamy rolled his eyes, collecting the paper and filling in the blanks he remembered.

“What did you do this time?” Wick held up his right hand for him to see, and all Bellamy could understand were the spikes of wood penetrating his skin at dangerous angles and the blood that soaked through the tape.

“I need more tape for my thumb,” Wick told him with a shrug.

“I think you need a permanent doctor with you at all times,” Bellamy replied, filling in the medical emergency box with ‘massive mother fucking splinters’. Wick snorted at that.

“It was a dare.” As if that was an automatic explanation. Bellamy stared at him for a moment.

“What kind of life do you lead?” He asked incredulously. Wick grinned.

“A bloody dangerous one, now could you please fill in the form?”

“What, the one where it asks what the hell you did to your hand?” Wick nodded.

“Exactly.”

“Should I just write that you’re a massive idiot?”

“Yes,” Wick replied. “But an idiot who’s seventy quid richer.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows at the man.

“You were paid to do that?” He asked.

“Yeah. There was this fallen tree, massive splinters of wood coming out, and my mate – or, sort of mate; I think he just likes to see me in pain – dared me to slam my hand on it for seventy quid. He gave the money in advance.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows, partially impressed.

“So you’re an idiot,” he summed up. Wick nodded.

“But an idiot with seventy quid,” he repeated. Bellamy finished the form and filed them, handing them into the doctor when the next patient left. Wick was called in shortly after, and appeared thirty minutes later with his hand newly bandaged.

“If you don’t get drunk after this, I don’t know you at all,” Bellamy told him. Wick snorted.

“Got any plans?” He asked.

“Working at the Drop Ship tonight, you should come by.” Wick paused before nodding.

“Is that the place where the bar tender is a complete asshole, but he doesn’t charge for drinks half the time?” Bellamy paused, and nodding.

“Murphy. Yeah.”

“Get him to serve me and I’ll be there in a heartbeat,” Wick said before heading out the door.

Bellamy saw him again that night. The dingy lights of the Drop Ship dulled his hair colour, and Bellamy smirked at his limping appearance. Wick landed heavily on a bar stool at the counter, before looking at him with a sigh.

“You sound like you’ve been injured again,” Bellamy told him.

“I have Blake, I have. And I decided to come to you, instead of the health centre, because you’re the real reason I get hurt in the first place – so I can flirt with the cute receptionist,” Wick told him drily, rolling his eyes. Bellamy smirked.

“You’re nice and all,” he replied. “But you’re not my type.” Wick raised his eyebrows.

“Not your type? What is?” Wick looked genuinely interested and Bellamy rambled off some characteristics.

“Blonde, blue eyes, serious half the time, idiot the rest of it.” Bellamy was describing Clarke, sure. Wick scoffed.

“Maybe I am your type,” he replied. Bellamy rolled his eyes as Murphy walked behind the counter, chucking the cloth onto the surface.

“The people here are animals,” he complained.

“So you’ve made friends then,” Bellamy replied. Murphy rolled his eyes before looking to Wick.

“What’s he drinking?” He asked.

“Guiness,” Wick told him. He turned to Bellamy and mouthed ‘that him?’ and the older Blake nodded. Wick looked a little proud of himself, and Bellamy guessed he was hoping to get away with a free beer. Murphy served up his pint before leaning on the bar next to Bellamy.

“What the fuck did you do?” He asked Wick, nodding to the bandages. “Take on a fucking gun and ask it to go easy on you?” Wick snorted into his drink.

“Fractured thumbs after an Xbox marathon, stitches in my ankle that had something to do with a tree – what, I’m not sure. And another tree-related injury in my hand,” Wick told him. Murphy looked a little surprised.

“He slammed his hand into the splinters of a fallen tree for seventy quid,” Bellamy informed him. Murphy laughed.

“I would’ve done it for twenty,” the other bartender replied. Wick grinned, having a drink and Bellamy shook his head.

“I’m surrounded by idiots.” Wick rolled his eyes and Murphy groaned.

“He’s doing this thing with Clarke,” Murphy told the blond. “Where they quote Disney films for a month, and see who can do more.” Bellamy shrugged.

“ _Lion King_ is a legendary film,” he replied.

“I’m not arguing with you,” Murphy said. “I’m just saying, Clarke’s not here.” Bellamy paused and looked around. Honestly, it was odd not to have Clarke around. She was a permanent fixture in his life, and he would constantly assume she was there, even if she wasn’t. She had spent Christmas with him for the first time, after coming back home within a day, because of an argument with her mum. (She told him all the gory details and if Bellamy hadn’t disliked her mother beforehand, he certainly did now.)

But the competition was one just to see who would pay for their next movie night food, which was happening within the week. He had been putting so much effort into learning the quotes and saying them around her that he’d forgotten to do it just when she was around. (His History professor had given him an odd look when he called her Shark bait by accident.)

“Who’s Clarke?” Wick asked.

“Blake’s girlfriend,” Murphy replied. Just as Wick was raising his eyebrows with an impressed expression, Bellamy back handed Murphy on the arm.

“Not my girlfriend,” he said. (He felt like he had been saying it more and more recently.) Murphy scoffed.

“Of course she’s your girlfriend. You talk every day, you act like a couple, you talk about your impending wedding really casually. It doesn’t even matter that she’s your type – you’re fucking in love with her. You are literally dating her but without the sex,” Murphy told him. The look on John Murphy’s face was serious, and Bellamy knew that he was telling the truth. Even so, he avoided eye contact and spoke in a slightly whiny voice as he made an excuse.

“We don’t make out, either,” he added.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Murphy said sarcastically. “You don’t make out. Not like there’s absolutely no couples in the world who don’t do that.” Bellamy rolled his eyes, looking away from his friend and to Wick, watching the interaction with interest.

“Your type, huh?” Wick asked, raising an eyebrow. Bellamy groaned. “So, blonde, blue-eyed, serious and an idiot.” Murphy paused.

“Has he met Clarke?” He asked, very seriously. Bellamy shook his head and Wick laughed.

“You talk about your wedding?” He asked to change the subject. Bellamy sighed.

“Last month I was begging to let me use her printer and the old woman who lives down the hall thought I’d just asked her to marry me, when she said yes,” he explained. Wick and Murphy laughed, and Bellamy had to admit it was slightly funny. Hell, it was funny at the time, and it still was now. “So it just became a thing, where we’d bring it up in casual conversation – just random parts of it.”

“Clarke told his sister that she could be a bridesmaid,” Murphy said to Wick.

“Okay!” Bellamy said a little loudly. “If Octavia wasn’t a bridesmaid, she would have killed everyone and gone to a funeral instead.”

“But she announced that Jasper and Monty weren’t allowed to bring their moonshine,” the bartender replied. Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“Oh _sure_ , you would let Jasper and Monty come to your wedding with a lethal dose of paint stripper,” he said sarcastically. Wick and Murphy just laughed and Bellamy sighed, knowing he was in for a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wick is so precious. I just watched season one of The 100 over again, and I never realised he was the guy Kane found in the hallway after the Exodus ship. Like, this was the guy who asked for Kane's shoes if he died. I wondered why they'd write a character so great in for one episode AND THEY DIDN'T HE TURNED INTO A REOCCURRING ONE IN SEASON TWO.
> 
> Reminder that you can talk to me in the comments, ask me questions, tell me what you want to see - the comments I read do effect how I finish this story, so I would definitely tell me what you're thinking, okay? Thanks!


	16. What The Hell Am I Doing Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke distracts Miller from work, and they have a heart-to-heart, or really, and Clarke-to-Miller's-impenetrable-surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling extra generous today, seeing as I just finished a quarter of the third to last chapter. This is pretty big for me, considering I've only ever finished one other story this length in my life, and well, each of these chapters are aprox. 1,700 - 2,500 words. This quarter is 3,327. Like, I'm really into the descriptions and I have to tie off a lot of emotions.
> 
> So I'm rewarding myself, by giving you guys another chapter today.
> 
> Lucky you.
> 
> This chapter was added in just yesterday, even though I wrote the chapters around it a good week ago. I really wanted more Miller, and I thought I'd show off his relationship with Clarke - so you know what they're both up to. Also, I realised that for university students, I never talk about university.
> 
> Chapter title from 'Creep' by Radiohead.
> 
> Enjoy.

In March, Miller was just starting to really knuckle down for his exams. Biology was going to be the death of him and he knew it. But, he’d planned out an evening of studying, so he was going to stick to it. If he could. Possibly. Oh, who was he kidding? He was going to revise for half an hour and then illegally download a film. There was no way around it.

Well, until people turned up at the door.

He shared an apartment with Murphy, and it was his roommate’s day off. This generally meant that Murphy would get very drunk and do little to nothing. Miller liked those days – he could piss of Murphy, and his roommate wouldn’t be walking in during the night and actually sleeping at a regular time.

So, first he expected Murphy to get the door – because he was in the living room, and Miller was in his room, and it’s logical. But then, the knocking persisted, so he sighed, standing up and walking out from his notes. On the sofa was Murphy, staring at the TV.

“The door,” Miller said quietly. Murphy shrugged.

“I was hoping they’d go away,” he replied. Miller sighed, going and opening the door himself. There, standing in a hoody, with her hair in complete disarray, was Clarke. Miller raised his eyebrows at her and she sighed self-pityingly.

“I would have walked right in,” she said, brushing past him and heading in the direction of his room. “But I knew Murphy was here.”

“Hey,” Murphy said from the sofa. He raised an arm in greeting.

“I also know that he walks around in his underwear,” she added, turning and walking backwards. Murphy nodded, as if this were completely reasonable. “And I’ve seen Murphy in his underwear far too many times.”

“At least you’re learning your lesson!” Miller’s roommate called after her, as Clarke went into Miller’s room. He followed her in shortly afterwards, shutting his door and flopping back onto his bed with his notes. Clarke had seated herself at the other end of the bed, where his textbooks and flashcards didn’t reach.

“You’re working, aren’t you?” She said with a sigh. “Sorry.” He shrugged.

“No worries,” he replied. He really didn’t want to work anyway. “What’s up?” Miller shuffled his notes and books into a pile, dumping them on the floor. Then, he moved further up the bed, and Clarke met him in the middle. In one motion, he moved the duvet over the two of them, and they sat like that, leaning against the wall his bed was pressed against.

“The likelihood of me never talking to my mother again,” Clarke replied. _Ah_ , Miller thought. That’s why she’s here. Bellamy wasn’t always her go-to person, if you could believe it. And whilst Clarke was enjoying getting to know Miller’s dad’s girlfriend, Eva, and taking her advice for all it was worth, sometimes she just enjoyed sitting with someone, talking, and barely getting a response.

It was why they were so close.

“What happened?” Miller asked. Clarke sighed again, looking to her best friend.

“Well, Mum’s been phoning me a lot since Christmas, and I’ve finally started taking her calls,” she explained. It _had_ been three months, Miller thought. “I don’t think I’m over being told that she caused my dad’s death, but I could stand to talk to her more.” Miller nodded, letting her go on. “Am I being irrational, though? I mean, she didn’t _kill_ my dad – that was an entirely different issue. But if she had let the paramedics get him out first-“

“Clarke,” Miller said, looking at her. She sighed, nodding.

“I know,” she replied. “It wasn’t definite. If the paramedics had got him out first, he still might have died.” Miller nodded. A while ago, he realised that his expressions were often saying what he wanted to – but sometimes, people saw what they needed to be told. It was like talking to themselves, but a little more sane. “And I guess it’s the paramedics’ fault too,” she added. “I was taught, on one of those courses she signed me up to, that if there’s two injuries, one’s being really loud about it, and the other’s not, then you go to the quiet one. Because the loud one is obviously okay enough to scream about it.” Miller smiled a little at that.

He remembered once, when he and Bellamy got themselves into a fight in sixth form, that Clarke had come rushing over as soon as it was finished. Bellamy was complaining about the pain in his jaw and nose, while Miller had stayed silent – like usual. His wounds were all surface and he knew it, but Clarke had come over to him first, because he was being quiet, while Bellamy was more hurt. He guessed that the system didn’t _always_ work.

“But she kept it from me,” Clarke continued. “My mother kept that from me for, like, twelve years.” She simply glanced at Miller before sighing. “Okay, yeah, I was seven when it happened. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.” She tilted her head onto his shoulder, and he guessed this was so she wouldn’t have to look at him and realise anything truthful. “So much of me wishes she would have kept it to herself – but then the rest of me is grateful that she told me. I don’t know.”

Miller manoeuvred his arm around her, rubbing slow circles on her back. He was fairly sure there were tears trailing down her cheeks, but he wouldn’t mention them. Miller mainly wished he could make her feel better – but he had no idea how.

“Have you spoken to Kane?” He eventually asked. Clarke shifted her head.

“Yeah, a few times. He would just tell me that Mum was trying to do what was right, not to be angry at her blah blah blah.” Miller remembered Kane quite well. It had been Miller’s idea to get drunk that night, and Bellamy’s to go to the play park. Then, Clarke’s to start singing. It was a doomed plan from the start – underage drinking, and then being disorderly. He remembered being pulled into handcuffs; shoved up against the car, and the three of them in the back seat, sobering up fairly quickly after that.

The police station had been brightly lit, and Bellamy was recognised by a few of the officers – if only because Aurora Blake had been arrested a few times, and he would come with the adult to bail her out. He remembered Kane seeing them, noticing Clarke and sending a few words down the line to get the charges removed. He’d talked to them very seriously about the dangers of underage drinking, and promised this wouldn’t be put on their records. But he still told their parents, after he personally drove all three of them home. Well – apart from Abby. But he told the house keeper, and she promised to send along the message.

He always found it funny that Clarke had gotten her to quit, within the time she arrived home, and seven hours later, when her mother did.

The two of them stayed in silence again, both fairly comfortable with it at this point. Miller’s mind moved around a lot – for a guy who rarely spoke, he thought far too much. He remembered Wick, for one – met him a while ago with Clarke. Wick had been an interesting addition to the group; Clarke had grown silent after finding out that his dream job was the same one her father had. But, after a small time of processing, she immediately began asking questions, drawing on all of her knowledge of her father’s work to ask about it. Apparently, Wick had heard of Jake Griffin – he was using his design of the solar powered car engine (that he never finished) to help inspire his water powered one.

He briefly thought of Wells, too – who had visited a few weeks beforehand. Although he still didn’t like Miller and Bellamy, Wells had been civil and polite to them – probably recognising that he had lost. Miller didn’t like to think of Clarke as a competition, but it was what it was made out to be. Wells had her first, but lost her. Bellamy and Miller were happy to take over.

And Clarke – he remembered meeting her, in that Maths lesson with Ms Vera. He remembered handing them the packets of condoms and watching them take the fall for it. He tried not to bring up the fact that he got away with it – he wasn’t going to risk his half-decent record on a condom prank, no. He preferred to risk it on ‘kick me’ signs on teacher’s backs; stealing supplies from the school, selotaping photos of Michael Rosen or Ed Pickles to the outside of windows – in high places or in window coves.

But Clarke had been interesting straight off. Sure, Miller had been a little guarded around her, but she’d eventually let him in just like he did for her. He loved Clarke like a sister. And Bellamy like a brother. And the two of them were his semi-incestuous best friends. Speaking of that-

“How’s you and Bellamy?” He asked Clarke. She looked up at this.

“Good, why?” He shrugged.

“I thought you two would’ve started dating _at_ _least_ four and a half years ago,” he replied. Clarke quickly did the mental math, finding that four and a half years ago was when she started year eleven and met them. Then she huffed.

“We’re not like that.”

“You want to be like that.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“You know nothing, Miller,” she replied.

“At least you didn’t say Jon Snow,” he pointed out. “I’m not a fan of dying.” Clarke scoffed. “Seriously, why aren’t you guys together?”

“He doesn’t like me like that,” she replied quickly. Miller raised his eyebrows, immediately confused.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes he does.” She rolled her eyes, obviously not believing him.

“If he did, he would have said something.”

“You haven’t said anything.”

“I don’t like _him_ like that.” Miller rolled his eyes with a sigh.

“Imagine, though,” he said after a pause. “You like him-“

“I don’t,” she interrupted. Miller held up a hand for him to continue.

“But you’re too nervous to tell him. Why would you think he _wouldn’t_ be too nervous to tell you?” Clarke seemed to think about this before shrugging.

“It’s just not a good idea, Mill,” she ended up saying, stretching her arms out with a yawn. “Do you want to watch a film?” He didn't say anything else to her - partly because he knew she'd figure it out eventually, and partly because, yes, he wanted to watch a film.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember that I don't bite - so you guys can talk to me in the comments, tell me what you liked, what you disliked, what you loved and what you wanted gone. If you guys don't tell me stuff, I can't edit my next chapters well enough to keep you guys interested!
> 
> Plus, I love reading all of your comments, and they make me feel awesome, so thank you for that, guys.
> 
> EDIT: the advice I wrote here, about Bellamy being too nervous to tell Clarke - it's advice a friend told me, back in December. The idea is that he didn't know I liked him, because I was too nervous to say so. And I didn't know if he liked me or not, because he might feel the same. If both of you are too nervous to say, then you might go on forever, not knowing. To cut a long story short, curiosity killed the cat. I had to know if he liked me, and I ended up dead on the pavement, with tyre marks through me.


	17. Paranoia Is In Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke meets Finn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only have one more chapter to write, and then I'll be officially finished - but you guys still have a little way to go. So here we are, finally meeting Finn and that train wreck of a relationship. Good luck with that, guys.
> 
> To add to the playlist (on the final chapter, I plan to write down the entire playlist for you guys), this chapter title is taken from Muse's 'Uprising'.

Clarke hadn’t gotten drunk in a while, but it was the day after her last exam and her friends wanted alcohol to celebrate the end of another year, and she wasn’t complaining. They had been drinking since two in the afternoon, and it was now twelve. Ten hours of pouring alcohol down her throat, forgetting to intersperse it with food unless Bellamy specifically handed her something to eat.

She was out with her friends – Jasper, Monty, Bellamy, Wick, Miller and Harper. Lincoln had stayed at home, as had Octavia. The girl was almost eighteen and she could tell that Lincoln had a small crush on her. Clarke would put money on them having spent the evening together.

They were outside the Drop Ship, underneath a flickering lamp post. Murphy had just finished his shift and walked out with a girl called Monroe.

“I think she’s in my Pysch class,” Harper said after they’d walked off. Clarke checked the time on her phone, knowing that her friend would arrive at any minute.

“Jasper, you have to be normal,” she insisted. “When she gets here, you can’t be you – well, be you, but a better you.” Jasper laughed. He wasn’t as drunk as her; he could stand without swaying and form sentences easily. Really, Clarke was the only one amazingly drunk. She didn’t mind though. She felt she needed it. Her mother had phoned that day, and whilst her anger from a few months ago was still simmering, she could make it through conversations now. Only, she tended to drink straight after.

“Don’t worry, Clarke,” he assured her. “It’ll be fine.” Clarke shook her head a lot – it made her dizzy.

“No, it’s not fine. This is legitimately the last eligible girl in the country! She lives in the next town over, and is your last chance at happiness.” Clarke gripped Jasper’s arms by his jacket and she shook him a little. “You will not be happy if this goes wrong!” She all but yelled.

Her grip loosened as hands closed around her shoulders.

“Princess,” the voice said behind her. “You’re yelling.”

“Well this is a yell to thing about, Bell!” She cried, not realising she mixed the words around. “It’s so important it hurts!” Bellamy chucked from behind her, gentling massaging her shoulders as they waited outside the bar. Her friend was going to be there any minute – the only one left that she could possibly hook Jasper up with.

Clarke swayed on her feet, centring herself around the feeling of Bellamy’s fingers on her skin. She wasn’t aware that she’d gone on about their hypothetical wedding when she was doing shots before. She didn’t know that the others had grinned and laughed, and that Bellamy had told her ‘one day’ every time she asked when it was going to happen. She didn’t know this, but she knew that Bellamy could give a good massage, and she knew that she felt sparks at the touch of his hands.

She was even too drunk to consider the words Miller had put in her head a few months before. Maybe he was too nervous to tell her. She’d thought about them a lot, but it hadn’t changed a thing. His hands may be making her feel relaxed and safe all at once, but it wasn’t a good idea.

She almost closed her eyes to relish in the feeling, but then a voice called out to her.

“Clarke?” The voice was female, and Clarke’s head snapped around with a smile. The girl in front of her had dark hair and a pink summer dress with tights.

“Maya!” She laughed happily, moving away from Bellamy’s grip and into hers. She practically pounced on the girl, squeezing her tightly.

“You’re so drunk!” Maya said, pulling away. Clarke giggled and Maya winced at the smell of her breath. “Very, very drunk.”

“No,” Clarke said, dragging out the word. “I’m not. I’m never drunk. Like, never. They won’t let me get drunk. But I do my best work when I am. You know there was that artist who did her best sculptures when she was high on heroin. I could be her, you know, but they won’t let me.” Maya smiled at her rambling, holding her upright as Clarke pulled her along to her friends.

Once there, Miller took Clarke’s weight from Maya and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Miller – Nathan, Nate. You remember prom? You remember you and Bell picking me up? Was I really that heavy?” She was unaware of the others watching and laughing as she draped herself over Miller, slurring her words a little.

“No way,” Miller told her with a smile. “You were light as a feather.”

“Really?” She asked happily. “That is so nice to say!” Clarke threw her arms around him in a hug, and Miller held her loosely, waiting for her to fall down from her high. When she did, she turned back to the group.

“Oh, right!” She said. “Jasper, this is Maya – I met her when I was living in Polis. Maya, this is my friend Jasper. He makes illegal moonshine and likes to make things explode.” Maya looked a little shell-shocked, but she smiled at Jasper all the same and said hello. As they began to talk, Clarke wandered around the outskirts of the group, pretending that she was supposed to be protecting them from any harm. She had no idea what harm – but she thought there was definitely something out there, out to get them.

As she walked, stepping onto the road, she would circle the group. They were spread out, across the pavement and tarmac of the street. Part of her wondered if the boys could handle themselves. She doubted it. She didn’t want to just protect Harper and Maya, she wanted to protect all of them. So, as she went, she gave a little glare to everyone who even glanced over.

 _There, that should scare them off,_ she thought.

Then, as she took a step, her heel wobbled on the ground, letting her trip from the pavement to the road. No one noticed as she flew to the floor, saving herself at the last moment and standing rigidly straight. Quickly, she looked to every person on the road, including her friends, to see if anyone had noticed.

And she was in the clear, until she spotted a guy, laughing and grinning right at her.

He was standing in another group, a little way away, and his friends were giving him odd looks as he laughed at her mishap. She glared a little before glancing around again, just in case. Then she went back to glaring.

However, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling a little. The stranger was cute – dark brown hair flopping around his face and kind eyes. She very much liked his smile as he glanced at his friends and made an excuse, before walking over.

Deciding she didn’t want to attract any attention from her friends, she met him in the middle, smiling shyly as he chuckled.

“Have a nice trip?” He asked. She stuck out her tongue at him, already feeling a tiny bit more sober.

“Oh, it was joyous,” she agreed with a smile. The guy stuck out his hand.

“Finn Collins,” he said. She hesitated, before sliding her hand into his.

“Clarke Griffin.” He smiled at her.

“Nice name,” he said.

“You too,” she smiled back. Finn turned to look at his friends before his eyes reached her again.

“I can see you’re a little drunk,” he said. “But do you want to go and get a drink?” Clarke couldn’t stop herself from smiling and nodding, and she linked his arm with his as they headed back in the direction of the Drop Ship. As she passed her friends, she tapped Bellamy on the shoulder. He turned to look at her, and she pointed to Finn, giving a thumbs up and a wink.

If Clarke had been sober, she would have noticed the sadness in his eyes as he returned the thumbs up. If Bellamy had been drunk, he would have told her not to go with the stranger.

 

 

Clarke liked Finn a lot, turns out. He was fun and interesting; he gave her different views of the world which she thought she knew so well, as if he was turning every rock to show her the other side. He would push her to try new things in a very different way to Bellamy. Whilst her best friend would teach her how to rebel and get in trouble, Finn would show her new foods she hadn’t tried and take her to secret places she’d never known of.

She didn’t know if she loved him, but she felt like she could. They were a month in when she decided that they should have dinner with Bellamy and Miller. Although they’d already met, and had brief conversations, Clarke insisted that Finn had to meet her two best friends. Finn had already gotten to know her roommate, Lincoln, in the morning when Lincoln would get up to go for a run, and Finn would need the bathroom. So, the only people she needed him to well and truly get to know were her best friends.

Clarke waited in Bellamy’s apartment. Miller was setting the table and Bell was in the kitchen, finishing the food. Finn was supposed to get there in a couple of minutes, and Octavia sat on the sofa, pretending she wouldn’t have to be kicked out in a matter of minutes so they could eat dinner together at the (slightly untrustworthy) dinner table.

She remembered having to help Bellamy carry the table up the stairs, before finding out that it was slightly wonky. She’d stuffed the closest book underneath the shortest end to even it out, and even now, Bellamy’s copy of _Of Mice and Men_ was on the floor, where she could stand on it and not have to think about George killing Lennie.

There was a knock on the door, and she went to answer it, her face breaking out into a smile at the sight of her boyfriend. ( _Boyfriend_ , she thought. _Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend_.) She and Finn hugged before he kissed her chastely and walked into the apartment. He greeted her friends, and when Octavia looked up at him and narrowed her eyes, Clarke tugged on the girl’s hair a little, to make her stop.

“Serves up,” Bellamy called from the kitchen, and they all went in to get their food. Bellamy passed the plates out, first to his sister who thanked him and went to eat in her room, before Miller, Clarke and then Finn. Within a few seconds they were all digging into their food at the table.

“This is fantastic,” Finn said after the first mouthful. “How did you learn to cook like this?” Bellamy shrugged as he swallowed.

“Had to learn when I got custody of O,” he replied. The talk through dinner was mainly small and insignificant; the weather, the summer, the fact that they’d all driven back to Ground to be there for the meal. Bellamy smiled sheepishly at that. (“Well Clarke couldn’t wait to get out of Ark, and Miller is a sucker for long journeys,” he said as his excuse.)

Afterwards, as they drank coffee in the living room, did things take a turn. It was going nicely – although Clarke could tell that Bellamy hadn’t warmed up to her boyfriend, he was trying, and that’s what mattered. Miller, on the other hand, was friendly, if a little guarded, which was to be expected with him.

“So how did you guys meet again?” Miller had asked. He’d heard the story from Clarke many times, but she could tell he wanted to hear it from Finn. She wanted to, as well. Whenever anyone asked, she’d always tell it first – she wanted to hear how he remembered it.

“I was out with some friends – celebrating the end of the school year – and Clarke was fairly drunk. She fell off the pavement, and I remember finding it hilarious as she stopped herself and looked around to see if anyone saw. Asked her for a drink, and here we are,” Finn replied. Clarke almost winced – she saw Miller and Bellamy suppressing the same urge. The way Clarke told it involved a lot of dramatics and explanation, with hand gestures and actions as she explained the fear of falling and thinking that everyone saw. Finn’s was disappointingly short.

“Do you remember the drinks though, Princess?” Finn continued, looking to Clarke. She stopped for a moment before nodding and putting on a smile. Across the room, Bellamy had visibly stiffened, and she caught the look Miller was giving him.

But that nickname wasn’t Bellamy’s alone, right? Sure, he was the only one who had ever called her Princess before Finn (and the latter had only said it to her once or twice in private) but it didn’t mean that others couldn’t use it…

Clarke didn’t even buy it, but she answered Finn anyway.

“Yeah. Yeah I do. We left without paying, right?” Finn nodded with a chuckle, squeezing her hand. She’d told Bellamy and Miller about that, the next day with a hangover the size of Mount Everest, and later that day gone up to Murphy and gave him the money as he raised his eyebrows at her. But Finn didn’t need to know that.

Later, she and Finn took a walk, and he returned to his hotel, asking if she wanted to join. Clarke declined, saying that she and Octavia had plans early the next morning, even though it was a lie. She returned to Bellamy’s and shut the door behind her with a sigh.

“I don’t like him,” her best friend announced when he saw her. She sighed, flopping onto the sofa next to him.

“Good, because you’re not dating him,” she replied half-heartedly. Miller came into the room and handed Clarke a can of beer.

“You just don’t like him because he called her Princess,” Miller said, sitting down on the arm chair. Bellamy shrugged next to her.

“So? It’s a trademarked nickname – Clarke, you have to stop this insanity.” Clarke rolled her eyes at the dramatics but nodded anyway. She agreed. It was odd being called Princess without the smirk and the dark eyes glinting with laughter. It wasn’t the same.

“Did you guys like him otherwise?” She asked. They both shrugged.

“He was fine,” Bellamy replied shortly.

“You deserve way better,” Miller added. Clarke pursed her lips, staring at the TV blankly. In her head, she was telling them that they didn’t get to decide what she deserved. She was telling them that she liked him – a lot. That he was sweet to her, and made her laugh, and told her amazing stories. But she didn’t. She stayed silent. And eventually her head lulled onto Bellamy’s shoulder, and he didn’t move, letting her sleep there.

When she woke up, she was in his bed, and she could hear the muffled voices of the conversation out in the living room between the boys. She couldn’t distinguish the words, but the time said 2:17AM, and she could guess that they were about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musketeer bonding and relationships. Ah, if you don't sense the tension yet, then I'm not doing a good job.
> 
> Hey, remember that I'm totally sort of friendly, and love reading your comments, so make a couple down there, and tell me what you liked, disliked etc. Thanks guys :D


	18. This Is War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The anniversary of meeting Clarke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chapter Title is from 'This Is War' by Thirty Seconds To Mars.
> 
> Don't worry, you'll love this chapter. Nothing but fluff.

September 6th and Bellamy, Miller and Clarke were sitting in his living room. She’d managed to rent out the apartment opposite with Lincoln for another year, and the three of them were celebrating.

“Here’s to five years of the three musketeers,” she said, raising her beer bottle to the other two. They all smiled, clinking bottles and taking swigs of their drinks in celebration. Five years with Clarke and Bellamy was amazed. She was more beautiful than the day he met her; her blonde hair had grown longer, and her electric blue eyes had even more of a spark than that day in year eleven.

“Here’s to five years of me cockblocking the two of you,” Miller grinned, holding up his bottle. Bellamy watched as Clarke laughed, holding her drink out and meeting his eyes as he reluctantly joined in on the toast. The drink hit the back of his throat and he winced slightly.

“Five years,” he said, amazed. “Do you remember the first day?” Miller grinned.

“Of course – you two put condoms on Ms Vera’s desk,” he replied. Clarke nodded happily before pausing.

“And yet, you managed to get us to do the dirty work and get the detention,” she said, noticing for the first time. Bellamy sat up a little, his eyes widening.

“I can’t believe you!” He cried. Miller laughed.

“I supplied the condoms!” He replied with a grin. “And I will continue supplying you two with condoms for as long as we shall live.” Clarke grinned and Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“Is that going to be your vow at the wedding?” He asked. Miller laughed and nodded.

“I better get a vow, by the way – if I don’t, I’m totally objecting,” he threatened. Clarke giggled, finishing off the bottle and standing up.

“I’m getting another. You guys want more?” The two of them nodded as she went to the kitchen. Bellamy glanced over to Miller for a moment, recognising the look on his face as one of his thoughts wandering. He nudged his friend with his foot.

“What’s up?” Bellamy asked. Miller shrugged, his eyes clearing. “Come on, man. It may be five years for the three of us, but it’s been like fourteen for us two – talk.” His friend sighed as Clarke walked back in, the bottles held between her fingers by the necks.

“Monty asked me out at the weekend,” he said at last, quietly, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“No way!” Clarke cried, wide-eyed. She passed out the beers, sitting back down, not looking away from her friend. “This is huge. He’s liked you for like, two years!” Miller nodded.

“Yeah. That’s an issue, as well.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow.

“What’s the issue with that?” His friend sighed, taking a swig from the bottle.

“I’ve dated, what, five guys since I came out?” He said. Bellamy nodded.

“And you’ve done countless more,” he added. Miller rolled his eyes with a nod.

“Right. And in all that time, I never noticed Monty being into me – and, I liked him a little when we first met, but I sort of didn’t consider him until a couple of months back.” Clarke shrugged.

“So what? You’ve considered him now.” Miller sighed.

“But he’s _invested_ ,” he explained. “Two years. It hasn’t even been two months for me.” Clarke rolled her eyes, telling Miller that he was being stupid. Bellamy drank a little more of his beer.

“I say go for it, man,” he advised. “Monty’s into you. You’re into him. You’re not gonna’ know if he’s the right guy if you don’t try it out.”

“What if he’s not, though?” Miller asked. “What if I tear the group apart over this?” Clarke laughed.

“You’re not going to tear us apart. You’re one of the greatest people I know,” she insisted, nudging him with her toes. “Whatever you do, it’ll be the right move. I know it.” Miller sighed with a small smile, and Bellamy could sense that it was the end of the conversation. After that, they watched films and ate food together, yelling at the TV and each other. Octavia had been given the warning of it being their anniversary and stayed well away.

By ten PM, they were well and truly drunk.

“We should have a kid,” Clarke announced. Bellamy raised his eyebrows and Miller chuckled.

“A kid?” She nodded. “If we were gonna’ have a threesome to get a kid, I think we’d know which one of us was the father.” Clarke furrowed her brow and Bellamy smiled, finding it cute. His mind didn’t even register that she had a boyfriend.

“How would we know?” Bellamy laughed.

“Princess,” he slurred. “We’re all different ethnicities.” As if a light switch had turned on in Clarke’s mind, she nodded suddenly.

“Of course! Maybe we should just adopt then. Be friend-parents. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“What would we name it?” Bellamy asked. Clarke shrugged, and Miller lit up.

“Billke,” he said. Bellamy stared for a moment.

“Billke?” Miller nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah. Merge all our names together. Like ingredients. To make cake. We’ll have a cake child called Billke.” Clarke nodded with a grin.

“That would be great. Little Billke for a boy, Millarkamy for a girl.” In Bellamy’s mind, that sounded like a good idea. Coming from Miller’s mouth, it was idiotic. But from Clarke’s, he was sure it was Nobel prize worthy.

“We’d have great cake children,” Bellamy said wistfully. He laid down on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling. A moment later, Clarke joined him on one side, and Miller on the other. Their heads lined up as they stared at the white above them.

“At the wedding,” Clarke said quietly. “They could be ring bearers or flower girls.”

“I don’t want to get married to you two,” Miller replied. “But I want our children to be really involved.”

“You, too,” Bellamy added. “You need to have your own set of vows even if you don’t marry us.”

“When _is_ the wedding?” Miller asked.

“Fall,” both Bellamy and Clarke replied in unison. Bellamy didn’t look to her, but he could feel her smiling alongside him. Together, they all laid there for a while in the silence. Then, Clarke giggled about Miller and Monty going on a date, and he shot back the fact that she was dating Finn. Then Clarke looked to Bellamy, in the middle, still staring at the lamp shade above him.

“I’m sorry you’re alone,” she said, weaving her fingers through his.

“I’m not,” Bellamy replied.

“We don’t count,” Miller insisted. “And neither does O.” Bellamy rolled his eyes before remembering that he hadn’t told them. He hadn’t told them because it was new and scary, and he didn’t know how he felt. All he was sure of was that Clarke had something with that Finn kid, and he needed to move on.

“My girlfriend does though.” The silence Bellamy had created was so different from the drunken, comfortable one they had made together. This new one was sharp and fragile, and Bellamy was sure he could almost see it.

“Girlfriend?” Clarke asked quietly. He nodded and glanced over to her, to see that she was already looking back.

“Yeah. Girlfriend.”

“When did this start?” Miller had sat up, looking down at his friend. Bellamy took a breath and moved from lying, too.

“A little bit before that dinner with Finn,” he explained. Clarke was quiet for a moment before joining them.

“The one where you got angry because he used your pet name for me?” She asked, her voice with an edge. Bellamy could tell that this was going to go badly. He nodded. There was a sadness in her eyes, but it was becoming clouded by her annoyance.

“So,” she said. “It’s okay for you to get jealous, _while_ dating some other girl?” Bellamy froze, his blood boiling a little.

“I was not jealous.” Clarke scoffed.

“It was written all over your face,” she replied. “You were jealous of Finn, and had the nerve to act on it – all while shagging someone else!”

“Stop making shit up,” he retorted. “I didn’t like that he used that name. Sue me. But Echo and I had only just started dating.”

“ _Echo_?” Clarke asked incredulously. “What sort of name is _Echo_?”

“Look who’s jealous now,” Bellamy mused with a smirk. Clarke rolled her eyes, and he could see the danger in them. He didn’t care. He was sure he had plenty of hellfire in his own.

“Fuck you, Blake,” she spat, standing up. “You’re the one who didn’t tell us you had a girlfriend, and you were the one who was jealous of me and Finn.”

“What the hell was there to be jealous about?” Bellamy yelled, standing and glaring. He shot daggers at her seething frame.

“Me!” She yelled. “You were fucking jealous because of me!” Bellamy rolled his eyes, turning away. Clarke had made her way to the pile of empty bottles, and he’d gone to a place behind the sofa.

“Why the fuck would _I_ be jealous over _you_?” He asked, his eyes shamelessly and hatefully raking up her body, as if he was looking at something he hated. He hated himself for this. He wanted it to stop. He was in too fucking deep. Clarke scoffed, shaking her head as she moved over slowly, her voice dangerously low.

“Because you’ve liked me for _five_ _years_ , and haven’t had the _balls_ to make a _single_ _fucking_ _move_. Yet, you won’t have me, but you also won’t let anyone else have me. Make up your fucking mind, Blake. Take me or leave me. Right here, right now.” Clarke’s eyes toyed with him, teasing and confusing everything that was inside of him.

He had no idea if she was serious – no clue if she was asking him to physically take her, in front of Miller. Bellamy was afraid for a moment, his eyes searching hers and yet coming up empty handed. He stared, angry and annoyed, but unmoving. Clarke was only centimetres away from him, testing him with everything she had.

He could kiss her, he thought. He could do that. But he didn’t know if that was the right answer. He didn’t know if there _was_ a right answer.

But the moment passed and Clarke rolled her eyes, moving away. She picked up her shoes as she went.

“That’s what I thought, Bell. Happy anniversary, you guys.” The door clicked quietly behind her, which probably said much more than if it had slammed. Once it had, Bellamy let out a breath and stared into the space where she had just been. Miller’s voice broke the silence.

“Well, it was a nice evening up until that bit,” he said. Bellamy sighed, flopping over the back of the sofa and onto the cushions.

“What the fuck was that?” He asked.

“I don’t know, man. But you should’ve kissed her.” Bellamy groaned, turning his head to look at his friend. The one that had a sympathetic look on his face.

“I know that.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think she wanted me to.” Miller rolled his eyes.

“She asked you to do it. And you didn’t.”

“What do you think is going to happen?” Bellamy asked. Miller shrugged.

“I don’t know. Clarke trusts you – and she trusts your decisions. You’ll have to wait and see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you hearing me laughing in the distance?


	19. Waking Up At The Start Of The End of The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn. You asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second update today in celebration! So, this basically means that I didn't want to leave you guys in suspense for too long after that chapter, seeing as anyone else who reads it in the future won't have to worry about it.
> 
> How nice am I, huh?
> 
> The Chapter Title is from 'Let's See How Far We've Come' by Matchbox Twenty. (The song also inspired another one of my fics, so have a look for that.)

Clarke didn’t speak to Bellamy for two months. Well, she did and she didn’t. They were often in the same room – all of their friends overlapped. She, Miller and Bellamy would hang out still – but more quietly, with Miller sitting between them. Bellamy would sometimes leave social gatherings early so he could go on dates with Echo, and it was near the end of October when he introduced her to the group.

Even Clarke could see she was pretty. She was tall, brunette and graceful on long legs with a brilliant smile. She and Bellamy made a striking couple – one that you’d see in the street and know that they’re the elite; on a completely different level.

Clarke didn’t have a crush on Bellamy, though. Because she was with Finn. And Finn didn’t pick up on the hostilities really, because his nose was always buried in his phone, and he was naïve and polite to everyone. Echo was too. She was lovely, and in the moments where she and Clarke spoke, she didn’t act as if she’d heard anything about her other than the nice things. But she knew that Bellamy must have bitched to her at some point – she did the same with Finn.

But their non-talking was leaving a scar in the group. Whilst Miller was nervous about dating Monty, they had started to anyway. At least, Monty called it dating. Miller said they’d been on dates. There was a difference and they all knew it. But the scar those two could create would be very different to the one Bellamy and Clarke could – they’re scar would be derived from misplaced hatred and sour words.

So Bellamy started going on more dates with Echo, if just to avoid Clarke. And Clarke did the same with Finn. At least – until November 12th.

November 12th was like any of the days leading up to it. Clarke waited by her door until Bellamy had gone out on his morning run, so she could leave peacefully. She walked with Octavia to her sixth form college, that was on the way to her morning lecture. They didn’t speak of Bellamy, even though it was difficult, and they arrived at her class before departing with a hug.

Lincoln was already in her Studio Art lesson, like always, and had saved her seat at the desk next to him. She arrived and painted away her feelings; her project had been taking a darker turn since the fight with Bellamy, and while she still painted in the light Miller brought, it was always tainted with fear. Her teacher loved these dysfunctional pieces, and told her that her muse must be interesting to work with. Her teacher didn’t understand that it was more heart-breaking that interesting.

After class she went back to the apartment, taking a long shower to wash away all of the paint and the emotions that she’d bring with her. It was a Tuesday. Tuesdays usually ended in dinner at Bellamy’s – but he’d cancelled. He had a date. Then again, so did Miller and Clarke. All three of them had bailed on their one consistency. It was strange – as if the caring was there, but had been disregarded. Neither of them spoke to the other about arranging their dates – just went and did it.

Clarke knew it was because of her and Bellamy. They were both in the wrong, but neither could really confront the other about it. And Miller – well he couldn’t stand conflict. He didn’t want to be in the middle of them, and neither of the two wanted to place him there. However, he’d often relay quotes from Eva – his father’s girlfriend to the both of them. Eva had a surplus of good advice, and Clarke wasn’t very ashamed to admit that she had her number, and phoned her sometimes for help.

November 12th was one of those days.

“Clarky,” Eva greeted, and Clarke could practically see her warm smile.

“Hey Eva.”

“What’s up, buttercup?” The woman asked, and Clarke smiled.

“I have a date tonight,” she replied.

“Is there supposed to be a question in that?”

“It’s Tuesday. Tuesday is family dinner night.”

“Ah,” Eva responded knowingly. “What did the boys say?”

“They didn’t care. They arranged dates, too.” There was silence for a moment.

“You’re upset because all of you ditched your family dinner,” Eva said. Clarke nodded, and although Eva couldn’t see her, it was like she still knew. “Clarky, you have to talk to them about this. They’re your best friends.”

“I know – but it’s like we’re all breaking apart. And soon it’s going to be weird to phone you for advice.” Eva laughed down the line.

“You’ll be fine. Friendship is strong. It’s binding. There’s no way that you’ll get apart from it – especially the type that you three have.” Clarke was silent, hoping for more. “You know, Miller phones, just like you. He’s more worried than you are.”

“That’s because he’s in the middle of it.”

“No, Clarky – it’s because he’s not. He would prefer if you guys were fighting over him – instead, you’ve left him out on his own. He’s phoning a lot right now – I assume you don’t know how his dates with Monty have been going.” Clarke paused.

“No… I guess I don’t.”

“Exactly. Now, I’m allowed to be bias in the situation, because I’m dating his father – but Miller refuses. He won’t choose either one of you. Because he may have known Bellamy longer, but he loves you both the same. Family is important, Clarky. Go on your date, if you want to. But if you want to repair your sinking ship, you have to first find someone to place their hand over the gap while you grab the duct tape.”

Clarke laughed, rolling her eyes at Eva. She spoke in metaphors a lot – saying it made her sound more wise.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks Eva,” she replied with a smile.

“No worries, Clarky. Have fun on your date.” Clarke hung up and stared at the ceiling for a while. If she wanted to repaired the sinking ship that was her, Bellamy and Miller, she’d have to reach out to them, not just complain. But she sat up to check the time, and she knew that they’d already left for their dates. Sighing, she went to get ready for hers.

 

In retrospect, Clarke wished she hadn’t gone on that date.

It was going fine. Although she had a lot on her mind, Finn didn’t really notice and they stayed at his place to eat dinner. He’d ordered in Chinese and they watched a sappy romance film that had her almost in tears. As it reached the end, she felt his hand move from her waist to her thigh.

She didn’t move though, as a small smile graced her lips. They’d been together since June – five months. They’d had sex plenty of times. Finn’s hand rubbed against her inner thigh before moving up and she turned with a smile. Clarke pressed her lips against his, taking the control and moving on top of him. His tongue swept along her lower lip and she granted it entrance, running her hands across his chest.

His hands were moving from her waist and up to her breasts and Clarke moved quickly, pulling off her t-shirt and silently cursing herself for wearing jeans. She moved back down as Finn fumbled with the clasp to her bra. The two of them moved in sync, merging and pulling apart at the right moments. And while it was a little stunted, or they fumbled too often, it was nice and she didn’t mind. The sex wasn’t mind-blowing, but it was good all the same.

Within minutes she was down to just her underwear, and him his boxers. This is where it really started to go downhill. His hand was just reaching down to her heat, while the other squeezed at her breast when the door flew open.

Clarke immediately tumbled backwards in shock, staring wide-eyed at the girl in the doorway. Her arms came to her chest, and Finn shuffled backwards on the sofa in fear.

“What the fuck is going on?!” The girl screamed from the door.  She stomped forward, slamming the door shut as she went. “Who the hell is this?!” The woman pointed a finger at Clarke and she felt more scared than she had before.

Finn was stuttering his answer and Clarke was trying to get up – to find her clothes, _where the fuck had her clothes gone_. The woman in front of hers eyes seethed and Clarke found her bra first, pulling it on in haste. Once that was on, she turned to the others.

“What’s happening?!” She cried out, mainly directed at Finn. But the girl turned on her anyway. She was pretty – gorgeous, even – but Clarke didn’t have time to register that. She just saw the hatred.

“ _What’s_ _happening_?” The woman hissed. “How about I ask you that, seeing as you were fucking my boyfriend!” Clarke’s eyes widened in shock and she turned on Finn.

“Boyfriend?” She yelled. “ _Boyfriend_?” Finn stumbled back and off the sofa, to stand behind it. Clarke stomped a foot, landing it on her t-shirt and she quickly pulled that on. “Are you meaning to tell me,” she glared at Finn. “That you’ve had another girlfriend the _entire_ _time_?”

“ _You didn’t know_?” The woman asked her. Clarke shook her head quickly.

“No! If I had, I wouldn’t have been dating him for the past five months.”

“ _Five_ _months_?!” The woman turned back on Finn. She picked up the empty Chinese takeaway boxes from the table and threw them at him. “I did an exchange course for six months, and you shack up with another girl?!” Clarke stared at the people in front of her. So many emotions mixing in her stomach. Most of them anger. “We’ve been together for _five_ _years_ , Finn!” She screamed, throwing a pillow. But everything was hitting Finn and bouncing back off. Nothing was doing any damage.

Clarke could see the pain the woman was feeling straight off, and as she pulled on her jeans she was feeling it all too well. She was the other woman. The mistress. Finn didn’t love her like he said, he was just using her to pass the time.

“You’re such an asshole,” she told him. Finn stuttered for words but nothing came. “You never loved me, did you?!”

“He told you he loved you?” The woman asked. She nodded. The hellfire in the girl’s eyes burnt more furiously. She looked around for something else to throw, and Clarke lifted the mug she had drank her coffee from, from the table. The woman’s eyes lit up for a second.

The smash was deafening, and although there was only a scrape on his skin, it made the point clear.

“Fuck you, Finn,” Clarke said, storming out. “We’re over.”

Clarke left quickly but she wandered around in the darkness of Ground for a long time. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. She knew she needed her friends – but Miller was out with Monty, and a text from Jasper said they’d be out all night. She didn’t want to disturb that – not if she hadn’t been listening to him in the first place. He could be happy with Monty, calling it ‘dating’ and referring to him as his boyfriend. She didn’t want to wreck that.

There was only one other person she would want to talk to, so she sighed, heading back home. As she went, she considered phoning her mother. But she didn’t know if she could – not anymore. She may have been getting closer to her again, in the eleven months since she heard the news, but she still wasn’t sure if this was something she wanted to talk to her about. This wasn’t the right topic to bridge the gap. Hell, she wasn’t even planning on spending Christmas with her mother and Kane.

No, that was why she found herself sitting outside Bellamy Blake’s door.

She waited for quite a while, guessing that he was probably staying the night. But, it was as good a place as any to sit and wait and cry. Cry because she was in love with this boy who was happy to hurt her. Cry because she’d ruined her friendship with her best friends. Cry because there was a woman who’d been destroyed – her _five_ _year_ boyfriend had been fucking someone else.

Clarke cried for a while, and dry-heaved for some time after that. She had a nap, knew that even Bellamy, in his current dislike of her, wouldn’t leave her out in the hallway asleep. She waited for hours, until five in the morning, when he returned him, dishevelled and smelling of sex.

He hesitated when he saw her, but chose to keep moving anyway. He stuck the key in the lock and looked down at her.

“How long have you been here?” He asked.

“However long it’s been since eleven last night,” she replied with a yawn. Bellamy swore.

“Are you locked out?” She shook her head. “Then why are you here?”

“I want to talk to you.” Her best friend sighed, before holding out a hand to pull her up. She took it gratefully before following him into the living room and landing heavily on his sofa. He sat down next to her, with a bit of space in between. Bellamy waited for her to speak. Instead, she yawned lying down and resting her head on his lap. He may be angry at her, but she knew he wouldn’t deny her this.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Bellamy remained silent. “I’m sorry for saying you were jealous and for taking the piss out of your girlfriends name, even though I’m adamant that it’s kind of stupid.” She heard him snort, but kept going anyway. “I’m sorry for avoiding you and not talking to you and not fixing it. I should have and I’m sorry. I don’t like you not liking me.” She stopped and waited before Bellamy sighed.

“I still like you, Clarke,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, too. I was a dick. There’s a billion reasons why someone would like you, and I’m sorry for saying there wasn’t.” She nodded, closing her eyes, a small smile on her face. _They’d made up._

“I broke up with Finn tonight,” she said into the silence. She felt him stiffen, and she wondered if it was bad – did she make a mistake?

“What happened?” His voice was quiet. She wondered if he was gritting his teeth.

“He had another girl friend.”

“Oh.”

“Actually. I was the other girlfriend. She’s been dating him for five years.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to beat him up?” She considered it for a moment.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay.” They were silent for a while and Clarke felt his lips on her temple as she fell asleep.

“Night Princess,” he said, gently moving out from underneath her head. She felt him place a pillow there instead, and drape a blanket across her, and then there was nothing. Clarke fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is called a celebratory update, because I HAVE FINISHED WRITING THIS STORY. While you guys have another ten or so chapters until you reach the end, I have finished writing it. And I am excited. Sure, I still have last minute edits to make, and your comments really do effect what I do to the chapters before publishing them, but all in all: I'm finished.
> 
> Which means a) this is the second time I've ever finished a fic this long in my life.
> 
> and b) I can start writing some new stuff for you guys while this is still updating. I have a fusion I'm looking forward to starting, and hopefully you guys will want to read it.
> 
> SO PLEASE REMEMBER TO COMMENT SO I CAN MAKE SURE THE EDITS ARE GREAT AND SO YOU GUYS GET A FIC YOU'LL WANT TO SEE


	20. Look Who Makes Their Own Bed, Lies Right Down Within It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy & Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter today. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE COMMENTS I'VE BEEN RECEIVING. I LOVE THEM ALL AND READ EVERY ONE OF THEM THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BE ALIVE.
> 
> For those who don't know: I update this fan fic EVERY SINGLE DAY. Without fail. Sometimes even twice.  
> Other things you might not know: YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY COMMENT YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CHAPTERS AND STORY AS A WHOLE AT THE END.  
> Even more things you may not know: Your comments DO dictate what changes I make to my drafts. If you say you hate how I've portrayed a character, I will go back and make edits so you get a character more canon to the one on screen. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT.
> 
> Chapter Title from 'Icarus' by Bastille.

Bellamy cared about Clarke a lot – for the record. She was his best friend, and within two days everything had fallen back into place. Miller was back and so was Clarke, and they listened to him talk about Monty, and they recognised the look on his face – he actually liked this guy. Things were back to normal – well, most things.

There was one part of Bellamy’s life that he still needed to fix: Echo.

He had liked her at the start – too much, in fact. It scared him, he felt too strongly for a new person, and he hadn’t felt like that since he met Clarke. He was convinced that she was someone special. The main difference though, between her and Clarke, is that Echo _wasn’t_ Clarke.

Echo was someone else.

And Bellamy didn’t expect her to be.

They were good at first; she was funny and kind, and they may have had differing opinions, but she didn’t kick up a fuss like his best friend did. He kept her a secret. If he hadn’t, he knew that he would be accepting her as his girlfriend; accepting her as a part of his life. If he hadn’t kept her a secret, he wouldn’t have lost two months with Clarke.

He didn’t resent Echo for this, though. No, it was his fault. And Echo tried to sooth the wounds he had inflicted, and for a time, he let her. She was gentle and calming, albeit with a tough bite. And she made him forget about anyone else – she made him feel like it was just the two of them. But Echo slowly started to become too much.

Just the two of them wasn’t a world he wanted to live in. It was one where, because of the time he spent apart from his friends, she expected more for herself. She expected him to be around, and to set date nights on days that were previously booked for his friends. But it wasn’t fair for him to say that that was the cause of him breaking up with her.

Because it wasn’t.

The cause was that half way through, he realised that she wasn’t the girl he wanted. The girl he wanted was blonde and not talking to him. The girl he wanted was shorter with a poison tongue and electric eyes. The girl he wanted was dating another guy - until now.

Bellamy so wanted it to be Echo – for him to choose the simple girl who was easy to love, and easier to keep. But it wasn’t. It was Clarke, and he knew it.

“Echo,” he said, as she cleared their plates away. Bellamy stood in the doorway to her kitchen and watched; her dark hair was tied up and it reminded him of that girl – Raven – who had come by the apartment, hoping to find Clarke a couple of days beforehand. She was gorgeous too, just like Echo.

But neither of them were Clarke.

Echo hummed in response and Bellamy nodded. She wasn’t facing him and that made it easier.

“Echo, I think I need to talk to you.”

“What about?” He watched as she placed a plate on the draining board and turned to look at him.

“Us, mainly.” He swallowed and she eyed him.

“You want to break up, don’t you?” She asked with a sigh. He nodded silently. “Can’t say that I blame you.” His head shot straight to her, eyes wide.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in love with your best friend – the girl, not the guy. Though, I would be cool with that, too – unless I was the one to turn you gay, then I would be thoroughly not cool with it.” Echo had the playful look in her eye that Bellamy knew to be her, joking but serious at the same time.

“I think so,” he said quietly.

“What was her name? Clarke?” Bellamy nodded. “She’s cute. After I met her a few weeks back, I knew we were just a matter of time.” Bellamy furrowed his brow in confusion, staring at the girlfriend he no longer had. “It’s the way you look at her, Bell. You may say you love me – but not in the way you love her; not in the way I deserve to be loved.” He nodded, silently.

Echo took the few steps that brought her to him and smiled sadly. She pressed a kiss to his lips, simple and sweet, her fingers running through his hair for the last time. When she pulled apart, she studied him for a moment longer, and Bellamy’s eyes scoured her face. But she was serious. While he was breaking up with her, she’d already made her peace with it.

“I love you, Bell,” she said, almost wistfully. “Go get her for me.” He nodded, albeit slightly unsure, before turning and leaving Echo’s home. Bellamy was very away of the simple and stable love he was leaving behind; the girl who made it easy to care for her, and easier to stick around. But Bellamy didn't want easy. Like always, he wanted Clarke. He returned to his apartment and stayed there in silence for a while, hoping someone would knock on the door. But it was late, so he went to sleep instead.

Only a few things happened over the next few days – but two were important, to Bellamy at least.

One was Clarke drinking herself under the table until she stared at Bellamy and laughed. It was just the two of them, and he was fine, watching her drink, until this point.

“You’re my best friend, Bell,” she said eventually. “I love you, you know that?” He’d laughed and nodded, and it wouldn’t be a lie to say that a small glimmer of hope rose in his chest. “You’re like my brother. My brother, you know that?” The glimmer caught fire and burnt out. He didn’t really respond, but the monologue Clarke jumped into didn’t really give him a chance to, anyway. She spoke passionately about never wanting to date again, about how important brothers were to her, as an only child, about how Finn may have turned out to be an asshole – but he was a decent fuck all the same.

The next day, after Clarke had gone out, there was a knock at the door. This was the second important thing to happen.

He opened it, still slightly dejected from the day beforehand, to see a beautiful woman. He recognised her as Raven – her naturally tan skin, her dark fearsome eyes, the hair, pulled up into a ponytail like his ex-girlfriend’s was on the day they broke up.

She stared at him for a moment.

“You’re Bellamy, aren’t you?” She asked. He nodded and she took it upon herself to walk into his apartment and take a seat on the sofa. Dumbfounded, he watched before shutting the door and following her through. He sat next to her, not very closely, though. She filled up the gap and looked at him carefully.

“Finn told me today that he loved Clarke more than me.” Bellamy swallowed, watching. But there was nothing to watch, because Raven moved closer and kissed him. She was gentle at first – testing the waters and giving him a chance to back out. But he didn’t. Bellamy was feeling dejected and he was feeling kind of bad. He needed a pretty girl right then – at least, he thought so.

So Raven kissed him harder and straddled him, grinding her hips into his. He sucked a trailed of open mouth kisses down her neck and bruised her in as many places as possible. On his bed, she dragged her nails down his back, making scars he knew would last a while. She drew blood and he drew purple marks across her body. He painted a picture with the hickeys and then with the bruises caused by his fingers on her hips.

He’d told her that he wouldn’t be a solution – that he wasn’t what she was looking for. She’d told him she knew and pulled down his jeans anyway. He hadn’t minded. Raven was gorgeous and more than anything he needed. Apart from Clarke. She wasn’t Clarke.

But Bellamy kept his mind off of her, and stayed with the woman in front of him, who was biting at his neck gently and scraping her fingers down his body.

Later, when they were finished, Raven only took a minute to catch her breath. Even then, she was still worn out as he watched her stand, pulling her clothes back on. They met eyes for a moment and it was a silent agreement that neither of them would speak of this moment again. Instead, he said something else.

“Was that what you were looking for?” He asked. He knew the answer before she said it.

“No,” she replied, pulling on her jacket and walking out of the bedroom. He hadn’t even found his underwear before she’d shut the front door. He couldn’t blame her – she wasn’t what he was looking for, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU CAN COMMENT DOWN BELOW.  
> PLEASE COMMENT DOWN BELOW.  
> I LOVE LOVE LOVE GETTING COMMENTS.
> 
> Did you noticed I used Raven's line to break up with Finn on Echo instead?
> 
> COMMENT.
> 
> Possible second chapter might be uploaded later. Depending on mood and plans.


	21. In The Darkness, I Will Meet My Creators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller & Monty & Eva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the very few longer chapters. About three thousand words. I'm LOVING the comments, so please keep them going. Also, I might be updating twice a day from now on, considering this story is getting fairly popular. So if you'd like that, please tell me in the comments.
> 
> Also, tell me what you think about this chapter. We haven't had a Miller one for a while, and have been focusing a lot on the Clarke/Bellamy drama.
> 
> Chapter title from 'Smother' by Daughter.

In December, Miller had been ‘dating’ Monty for about a month. He’d been going on dates with him since September, though. He knew there was a difference, and while Monty went in straight away with terms like ‘boyfriend’ and ‘dating’, Miller was a little more apprehensive. He spoke a lot to Eva about it on the phone, and each time he rang, he could hear the happiness in her voice – just that she knew he cared about her opinion.

He would have talked it through with Clarke and Bellamy – but their opinions worked better when they were together, to bounce ideas off the other, and the one time he tried it separately, the answers were hideously different.

Even now they were friends again and their lives had returned to normality – what with Clarke and Finn being over, and the same with Bellamy and Echo – he would still phone Eva for advice.

And that was exactly what he was about to do when he said goodbye at the Drop Ship. Murphy gave him a two finger salute and went back to serving a customer and Clarke gave him a quick hug before turning back to her new friend, Raven. (He found it strange on all sorts of levels that she was friends with the woman her ex-boyfriend was also seeing – but he wasn’t about to say anything. That Raven girl scared him.)

As he entered the darkness of the night, he pulled out his phone and clicked Eva’s contact number. She was at the top of the list of his contacts, above his own father, and that confused him a little, but it also felt oddly right. Miller dreaded the day that David Miller broke up with her, but so much of him could tell that it wasn’t going to happen. They were really happy together. (Eva was going to spend Christmas with them too, which excited Miller to no end.) It had been over two years since that day in the bathroom, and neither of them had told his father that she was naked at the time.

Pushing those thoughts from his head, he clicked her contact number and held the phone to his ear, listening for the rings.

“Miller,” she greeted and he automatically smiled.

“Eva,” he replied.

“How are you? We haven’t spoken in a week,” she asked, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. Miller rolled his eyes.

“I’m good thank you,” he said dryly. “I’m just phoning because I’ve got a date with Monty tonight and he seems all excited about it.”

“Is that a bad thing?” She replied with a sigh. “He likes you – and you like him, get used to it.” Miller sighed.

“It’s not a bad thing, but he gets overexcited and when he does it’s because there’s a surprise or something.”

“I sense your irrational hatred of surprises resurfacing,” she said down the line. Miller rolled his eyes, turning the corner on the street.

“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”

“Not stupid – wary. And you’ve got the right to be. Just trust him, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Miller nodded even though she couldn’t see him and he changed the topic.

“How are you and Dad doing?” He asked.

“Good, really good,” she replied with a smile in her voice. “We’ve just moved the last of the boxes this morning.”

“Officially moved in then?”

“Something like that. But it turns out, I have far more things than I remember buying.” Miller chuckled as he walked, and he could hear Eva do the same on the other side of the call. “Also, we both have a lot of the same stuff – so we have lots of kitchen utensils to start selling off.”

“Mm, the age old problem of what to do with the left over crap,” Miller replied, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not your mother, but don’t say rude words,” she said. He laughed at her mock stern voice, reaching his apartment block.

“Even if you were my mother, I don’t think I’d stop,” he told her with a smile.

“Nice to feel the respect,” she joked in response. As he neared the front door, they wrapped up the phone conversation with a promise that he would phone his dad next time, not her (“I think he’s getting jealous”). When he entered his flat, he was distinctly aware of note left on the kitchen counter.

The apartment was actually fairly clean – they had made an agreement early on that any social or communal space had to be clear, while the bedrooms could stay as pigsties. So seeing the bright green post it note on the counter meant that someone had been there, or Murphy had left a note – which was odd, because he was just with him for an hour and didn’t mention a thing.

But, when he reached the counter, he rolled his eyes at the phone number, scrawled across it, and the name of Murphy’s latest one night stand. Though, the hand writing seemed too messy to read her name.

Instead, he went to get dressed for his date.

In many ways, he was lucky to have Monty over other guys. One of these reasons being that he did casual dates more than anything. Miller learned quickly that Monty wasn’t one for fancy restaurants or actually putting effort into clothing. He asked him about it once and he’d said that it was because the clothing wasn’t going to resemble anything in the relationship. Getting dressed up for people was like putting on a façade. And while Miller didn’t really buy into it, he didn’t dispute with Monty over the subject – because Miller hated getting dressed up and Monty had been high at the time.

So he wore jeans and a t-shirt, with a jacket as well, waiting for Monty to arrive. His ‘boyfriend’ ( _boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend_ – Eva kept telling him that if he repeated it enough, he’d get used to it) had insisted that he pick Miller up for the date. And so, four minutes early – as expected – the buzzer sounded and Miller said he’d be right down.

He took a breath first, hoping the surprise wouldn’t be too big – he didn’t have any interest in surprises, and he certainly didn’t like it when people went to too much effort for him – and descended the stairs.

Monty waited outside, leaning against his car, and Miller couldn’t help but smile when he saw him. He wasn’t sure what it was about Monty – but he liked him. He did. Miller just couldn’t always express it.

Monty pressed his lips against Miller’s quickly as a greeting before inviting him into the car. Once inside, Miller studied his boyfriend for a moment before speaking.

“Where are we going?” He asked. Monty shrugged.

“A secret location which you will not learn the name of until we arrive,” came the response. Miller just sighed, tipping his head back on his seat. He hated surprises. Monty took his boyfriend’s ( _boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend_ ) hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze. “It’s nowhere bad,” he promised. Miller nodded and missed the warmth when Monty’s hand slipped from his to start driving.

Miller loved long car rides, though, so when the destination took forty minutes to reach, he had a feeling that Monty had gone the distance just for him.

The ended up at a diner and Monty walked in ahead of him, sitting down in a booth near the corner. Miller glanced around – the theme was red, white and yellow, with a strobe-lit underside to the counter and only a few other customers. There were one or two waitresses, but otherwise the place was fairly empty. Miller looked to Monty.

“Why are we here?”

“Because I love this place,” Monty replied. “It’s like my second home. Where I grew up is about an hour in that direction-“ he pointed in the opposite way the place they’d come from “-and we used to come here all the time. I thought I should show you.” Miller smiled a little, looking around again.

The waitress came over and took their order, but Monty insisted that he should order from the breakfast menu, even if it was seven PM.

“The rest of their food is crap,” Monty informed him after the lady had gone. “Like, definite food poisoning.” Miller cracked a grin at this.

The two of them spoke for a while, until the food showed up – or, really, Monty spoke and Miller nodded at intervals and asked quick questions. They ate pancakes and he had to admit that they were fantastic, although he didn’t admit that the look on Monty’s face while he was eating made it even better.

Their conversations ranged from Jasper and Maya (still going strong, which was surprising in itself) to Clarke and Bellamy (not dating, which was also fairly surprising) and back again. Talking with Monty was always comfortable – not as much as it was with Eva, but he never thought twice about that. Eva was just a more open person. But Monty spoke easily and Miller could find himself being drawn into conversations with him, and actually have responses – which was more than it could be said for most people.

As they were finishing up their deserts – which didn’t really go with the breakfast food, but Miller wasn’t one to complain – Monty developed this look in his eye. Miller was great at reading people – he’d learnt from himself, and the way that he and Bellamy could communicate without words, and Monty was far easier to read than his best friend. Bellamy had his guard up – Monty never formed one.

But he couldn’t exactly _read_ the look in his eye. It was something he had definitely seen in Monty before, if only for a second, but it confused him. He was also a little scared by it – but he’d never admit that.

“What’s up?” He decided to ask after the look didn’t vanish like normal. Monty seemed surprised.

“What? Nothing!” He replied, a little too loudly. Miller just raised a disbelieving eyebrow and his boyfriend ( _boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend_ ) sighed, giving in. “Okay – there is something. But I don’t think you want to hear it.” Miller swallowed but stayed quiet, watching Monty carefully. “It’s just that, for a while, I’ve been feeling really strongly about you, and I don’t really know what to do about it.”

“We’re dating, aren’t we?” Miller asked, quietly. Monty nodded. “Then you’re allowed to feel strongly.” Monty nodded with a sigh.

“I know that. But I also know that you’re not as into this as I am. That we’re not on the same wave length, and I don’t want to feel that if you’re not going to, too.” Monty’s eyes were practically begging Miller to drop the conversation and return to normal, but he couldn’t. He stared silently for a moment, making up his mind.

“I’m just a little slower,” he ended up saying. “I know that I _will_ feel strongly for you, one day, but I’m behind on it.” Monty looked relieved, but also still worried and Miller had no idea how to change that. “But it doesn’t hurt that you feel that way,” he added.

Monty smiled a little as Miller reached out across the table and took his hand. Monty’s hand was smaller than his, and was shaking a little, but Miller couldn’t remember the last time he’d shook – with nerves, anticipation, even the cold. He was more solid and they both knew that. They smiled in silence for a moment before Miller shrugged.

“It wouldn’t hurt if you said it either,” he said quietly, a small smirk on his face. Monty grinned at him, standing and moving around the table to sit next to his boyfriend ( _boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend_ ). Next to him, Miller could see the look he recognised as fleeting, staying put in Monty’s eyes and he smiled.

“I, uh,” Monty looked down at his hands, and Miller sighed. Monty was a little cute when he was nervous, he’d admit. “I, um.” Miller used his free hand to tilt Monty’s chin upwards, and ducked down to his height to press a kiss against his lips. He felt Monty smile into his mouth before deepening the kiss between them, his free hand on Miller’s thigh. Miller pulled away a few seconds later and smiled, eyes locked with his boyfriend’s ( _boyfriend, boyfriend_ ). “I love you,” Monty said, wincing a little through the grin.

Miller laughed a little, moving back in to kiss his boyfriend ( _boyfriend_ ) again. They both knew that Miller didn’t love Monty. But he could – he knew he could, if he was given some time. And luckily for him, Monty had all the time in the world.

 

When he returned home the next morning, Murphy was lying across the sofa, phone held up above his face to look at the screen. He glanced at the door when he heard it shut.

“All-nighter,” Murphy said, smirking. “How was the date?”

“Monty said he loved me,” Miller said, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on a hook. Murphy sat up at that, turning to look at his roommate.

“Did you say it back?” He asked. Miller shook his head. “What happened?”

“We made out and then fucked,” Miller said with a shrug. Murphy raised his eyebrows as Miller retreated to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

“Fucking hell,” Murphy said, making Miller grin as he listened. “Last time I did that the girl broke up with me.” Miller laughed.

“It’s a cruel world!” He called through the door.

 

Only a few weeks later, he arrived home to Ark. Eva’s things were happily situated throughout the house, and Miller couldn’t help but smile at that. Her paintings were on the walls, and her photos lined the mantel with his father’s. It was a nice mix of Eva, David and Miller and could say he was okay with it. He never thought he truly would be – not after Clarke regaled him with stories of Marcus Kane moving in with her mother in the previous months. But it was a different situation for him – he was very happy at the prospect of Eva staying in his life.

He was back a week or so before Christmas, which busied him with all of the decorating Eva didn’t want to do until he was home. He helped her carry in the Christmas tree while he father was at work, and stood in the ladder outside the house to hang up the lights. It hadn’t snowed, but it was supposed to at some point.

He spoke to Monty every day and told Eva in person about his boyfriend (he didn’t even need to repeat it in his head anymore) saying the three fatal words. She had grinned so much, though, that he couldn’t help but smile back. She’d heard the story before, but it was so much better in person. She smiled a little brighter when he told her again about how Monty handed minded that Miller didn’t feel the same way just yet.

“That’s how you know you have a good one,” she insisted, hanging the stockings on the pegs.

It was Christmas day, though, that he remembered the most. He’d woken up at seven, like usual – and he may have been twenty, but he still went through to his parents room, banging on the door loudly.

“It’s Christmas! Get your butts out of bed and give me presents!” He cried out. He immediately heard laughter from inside their bedroom, and a few seconds later, Eva was opening the door with a grin. He glanced past her to his father, laughing still in bed.

Minutes later, while Eva made them coffee and Miller began to organise the presents into piles, his father sat next to him.

“You know,” he said. “The best present I’ve ever received – besides you, of course – was when you started talking to me.” Miller smiled at his father, who wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I always hoped you would someday. Who knew it would take Eva?”

“Thanks, Dad,” he said quietly. His father looked at him carefully for a second before speaking again.

“You like her, right?” He asked. Miller immediately nodded, definite. “And having her here is okay for you?”

“Dad, I love Eva. I love that she’s here,” he insisted.

“You’re sure?” Miller nodded again. His father nodded and smiled before standing up and excusing himself to help Eva with the drinks.

Five minutes later, they were sat on the floor by the tree, wrapped tightly in blankets. David had said that Eva should open her present from him last, and they nodded, going about the other presents. Miller received a lot of crap from his relatives, like he knew he would, including toys for ten year olds, from distant family members who actually had no idea how old he was.

“ _Bob the Builder_ ,” he said, a raised eyebrow pointed at the toy. Eva clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh and Miller rolled his eyes with a small smile. “One day, they will learn my age.” When it came to the final present, David looked nervous. Eva picked up the small box, carefully taking off the paper – she was one of those people to save it, iron it, and reuse it. Inside was a simple black box and Miller watched with wide eyes as she opened it and gasped, clinging to his father for dear life.

He smiled, catching a glimpse of the ring inside the box, and hearing Eva say ‘yes’ over and over and over. He laughed as they did, and let himself be pulled it for a hug, aware that he wasn’t upset about his father moving on from his mother. Eva was his mother – his new one. And she was going to join their family.

Miller couldn’t have been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment! I really really really want to know your thoughts!
> 
> I just want to say quickly that I have a lot of feelings about Miller's development. I really hope he gets more of it in the show, but for now, I'm happy writing it in here. If you haven't read the rest of the chapters in a long time, then Miller's development circles around his dad's girlfriend, Eva (own character) and the fact that he was a selective mute as a child. Throughout his life he's been getting better at speaking, depending on the situation, and I just really love the fact that he can talk openly to some people. Plus, I wanted to make him fairly wise in his own way. I hope that came through.
> 
> REMEMBER TO COMMENT BECAUSE I LOVE COMMENTS AND I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER


	22. The Thunder of The Drums Dictates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke meets a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One, possibly two updates today. This is what you call 'another obstacle in the road'.
> 
> Chapter Title from Woodkid's 'Iron'.

Raven and Clarke didn’t stay mad at each other for long, after the debacle with Finn. For one, Clarke was angry at Finn – only annoyed with Raven because she walked in on her naked. Raven was angry at Clarke for simply having sex with her boyfriend, but her rage turned on Finn, too. So, fairly quickly, Raven had invited Clarke out for drinks and they’d become fast friends.

Clarke may have gotten drunk a lot after the incident, but she didn’t remember much of it. She didn’t remember cursing out Finn, and then boys, telling Miller that she was the one who broke the PS4 in his bedroom back in sixth form, or telling Bellamy she only liked him as a brother. If she had, she may have entirely acted differently. But not to Raven. Because Raven was the one good thing coming out of the mess Finn made.

After that, Clarke had made work of introducing Raven around the rest of her friends, learning that most of the girl’s previous friends had been met through Finn, and with six months away, she was pretty lonely.

Raven had found common ground with everyone Clarke cared about, and was invited to movie and games nights pretty quickly. She’d even managed to get on the good side of Murphy, who was difficult to please, when at the Drop Ship, by persuading a girl he’d been eyeing that he had been the best fuck of her life. She was accepted with a life time of free drinks, after that.

So one night in January, two months after the break up to end all break ups, they were both at the Drop Ship. Murphy had served them their drinks, quickly complaining about the lack of staff now that his Uncle was ill and not hiring, before going off to clear a few tables.

“Isn’t Bellamy working tonight?” Raven asked. Clarke shrugged.

“I don’t think so. He might be at the health centre.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where he works, to look after me,” a voice said from behind her. Clarke spun to be greeted by the friendly face of Wick, leaning over the counter to serve himself a pint.

“Mm, yes, and your talent at getting injured,” Clarke mused. He laughed, sitting down next to her.

“It was one really bad week, I’ll admit. But it’s been months, and do you see any blood?” Clarke rolled her eyes, leaning back so Wick could see her friend. She immediately caught the look in his eye, but he covered it quickly.

“Kyle Wick,” Clarke said with a smile. “This is Raven Reyes. Raven, this is Wick: idiot, but all around good guy.” Raven smiled at him, and Wick leant forward to get a better look.

“Is this the girl you keep talking about?” He asked with a smile. Clarke nodded.

“You talk about me, huh?” Raven smiled, nudging her friend in the side. Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Yeah – kind of have to when people ask why I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.” Raven snorted, downing her drink and placing the glass on the counter.

“But, Clarke, I really feel like you didn’t do her justice,” Wick said with a crooked smile.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you may have said that she was hot, but you didn’t mention that she would be the most stunning person I’d ever see,” he replied. Clarke grinned, and Raven looked away, though she could see the smile.

“I’m sorry, I thought that would be implied,” she apologised. Raven nudged her again.

“You guys suck.”

“We’re complimenting you,” Clarke replied. “It’s as if you’ve never seen your own face before.” Raven laughed, rolling her eyes.

“I know I’m hot,” she told her. “I just don’t need to be told I’m hotter than everyone else.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. They need to figure that out for themselves.” Wick laughed as Clarke grinned at her friend. She excused herself, claiming she needed the bathroom, and the second she was out of her seat, Wick had moved over and sat in it. As she left, she heard Murphy arrive behind the bar.

“Did you serve yourself?” He asked, dumbfounded.

“I may have,” Wick replied. She heard Raven’s laughter from the back of the bar.

Clarke didn’t really need the toilet, but she went anyway, spending some time looking in the mirror and running her fingers through her hair. A girl stood at the sink next to her, looking at her own reflection and sighing.

“You shouldn’t run your fingers through your hair so much,” the girl said. Clarke jumped in surprise, and turned to look at her. “It makes your hair get greasy faster.” Clarke eyed her for a moment before replying.

“Thanks… I guess.” The girl nodded and focused on herself in the mirror again. Clarke did the same.

“Lexa,” the girl said. Clarke almost jumped again, but she didn’t.

“What?” She asked.

“Lexa. It’s my name.”

“Oh. Right. I’m Clarke.” The girl next to her nodded, and Clarke took the moment to study her. She was cute – but that wasn’t the right word. The girl looked fierce, as if being called cute would result in permanent body disfigurement. But Lexa was attractive all the same. The girl took a breath before abruptly saying goodbye and leaving. Clarke watched her go in the mirror. She counted to five before walking out behind her.

She noticed the girl lean against a wall, watching the room, and opted to walk past. But she couldn’t. Because, sitting at a table and staring directly at her, was the one person she desperately didn’t want to see. He gestured her over with a smile, and Clarke quickly glanced at the girl in his arms and held one finger up to Finn to symbolise _wait a minute_. Then, she turned and walked purposefully over to Lexa.

“Hey. Clarke – we met in the bathroom?” She said as a form of greeting. Lexa appraised her again and nodded.

“Hi,” she replied.

“So, my ex-boyfriend wants to talk to me, but he has a new girlfriend, so could you pretend to be dating me for like, five minutes?” Clarke spoke in a rush, trying to keep her voice as calm and level as possible. Lexa paused, glancing over her shoulder and Clarke assumed Finn was still looking because she nodded.

“Was he a dick?” She asked, pushing herself off the wall. Clarke shrugged.

“He wasn’t and then he was,” she replied. Lexa raised an eyebrow but nodded anyway.

“Cool,” she said, and Clarke felt Lexa’s hand slither around her waist. “Let’s get this show on the road then, huh?” Clarke nodded for a moment, surprised. She stared at Lexa in wonder before turning back to the task at hand. Finn.

She led over her fake girlfriend, and smiled at the boy who stood up in front of her. Finn insisted on hugging her, and while Clarke stiffened, she returned it.

“Hey, Clarke,” he greeted easily. “Who’s this?” As Clarke opened her mouth to speak, Lexa stuck out her hand.

“Lexa, Clarke’s girlfriend.” Finn hesitated, glancing between the two women before shaking Lexa’s hand.

“Nice to meet you. I assume Clarke’s mentioned me before then.” He suddenly looked nervous, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Barely,” Lexa scoffed, rolling her eyes. Clarke stifled her grin. This girl knew exactly how to play him, because he suddenly stopped looking self-conscious, but instead turned annoyed. She could almost read his thoughts: _barely? You’ve barely spoken about me?_

“Is this your girlfriend?” Clarke asked, nodding to the girl, still sitting, but watching the three with interest. She stood up then.

“Uh, yeah,” Finn said, wrapping his arm around her waist. The girl introduced herself – possibly Sarah, but Clarke didn’t really care enough to listen. Instead, she wondered why Finn looked so nervous at introducing her, but when she looked to Lexa, she completely understood. Lexa was appraising the girl with distaste, before looking to Finn as if saying _you went from Clarke, to_ her _?_ Clarke couldn’t hold back the smile this time.

The small talk ended as Finn felt more and more awkward. As Lexa and Clarke said goodbye and headed for the door, Finn stopped them.

“Clarke – you know I’m sorry, right?” She stared blankly at him for a moment.

“You don’t owe me an apology. You owe Raven one,” she said simply. Clarke made the mistake of glancing towards her friend at the bar, because that’s where Finn turned next, his eyes widening a little.

“Who’s she with?” He asked.

“You remember Wick, right?” Clarke replied. He nodded, swallowing again. Wick wasn’t big by any means, but he was taller than Finn and worked out more than him, too. The guy may look like he’s all smiles and sarcastic wit, but he had a defiant streak and Finn knew it. He’d seen the scars on Wick’s hands, as he told him he’d gotten them fighting, not slamming his hand into splinters or playing Xbox for too long.

Finn said goodbye again, and the two girls left, quickly stopping off by Clarke’s friends to say she was going, and warn Raven about Finn. A minute later, they were out in the night air and Lexa had taken her arm back while Clarke missed the warmth.

“Nice guy,” Lexa said dryly. Clarke huffed with a smile.

“He was,” she replied.

“What happened?”

“He dated me,” she said with a smile. Lexa raised an eyebrow at her and Clarke shrugged. “He was already dating Raven,” she admitted and Lexa nodded as if this sounded more correct than Clarke changing him.

“Well he’s an idiot,” Lexa said into the darkness.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Clarke agreed. They walked in silence for a while, breathing in the cold air.

“So, you like girls?” Lexa said at last, and Clarke’s head snapped round to hers. Lexa shrugged.

“There were plenty of guys in there – you could have used that Wick guy, as well. You went for me. I assumed,” she said as an explanation. Clarke shrugged.

“I like guys and girls,” she replied simply.

“I guessed that,” Lexa said.

“You?” Clarke asked.

“Just girls,” Lexa informed her. “Guys don’t do it for me.” Clarke smiled and they walked in silence for a moment until she realised that she’d have to turn off soon. She didn’t really want to, though. She didn’t want to stop being around Lexa, because while they hadn’t exchanged many words, there was a draw about the girl that pulled her in. It wasn’t just that she was hot – she had that guard around her; these walls that Clarke really wanted to knock down.

“My turn-off is up here,” Clarke told her, and Lexa nodded. Clarke took a breath, before saying something she was sure to regret. “You can come if you want.” Lexa raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look at her. “Back to my place, I mean. If you want.” There was a slight up-turn at the corners of Lexa’s mouth as she nodded, following Clarke back to her home.

When Clarke went inside, she felt self-conscious immediately. Lexa’s eyes swooped across the room before landing on the blonde. Then she nudged a weight that was left on the floor – neither of them would have been able to lift it.

“My roommate’s,” she said as an explanation. Lexa nodded again.

“Are they here?” Clarke looked around.

“Lincoln!” She called out. There were no sounds of movements. “I don’t think so. He’s probably across the hall. We have friends who live there, and he’s totally trying to get with the girl.” Lexa smiled a little.

“So we have the place to ourselves?” Clarke nodded and Lexa smiled, baring a teeth a little. “Good.” Lexa moved forward swiftly to press her lips against Clarke’s. It wasn’t gentle by any means – it was rough and quick; Lexa’s tongue darting into her mouth, and her hands surveying the blonde’s body. Clarke found herself being pushed up against a wall, and Lexa’s hands undoing her jeans within seconds.

The sensation of Lexa’s hand moving underneath her underwear made her shudder, taking heavy breaths as Lexa kissed her way down her jaw and to her neck.

“I don’t usually do this,” Clarke panted, staring at the ceiling as her knees buckled.

“What? Girls or in the hallway?” She asked. Clarke couldn’t help but smile.

“Hallway. And within an hour of meeting them,” she admitted. Lexa smiled, bringing her face back up to Clarke’s, her fingers slowing as Clarke whimpered.

“There’s a lot of things you’re never going to have done before with me,” Lexa breathed, and Clarke couldn’t help but believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, did you really think I was just going to get them together, super easily and super quickly? Yes? WHY


	23. She Takes The World, And I Take The Blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy, Lexa + Alcohol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from The Spiritual Machine's 'Couldn't Stop Caring'.
> 
> It's getting really hard to think of songs that relate to bellarke and have a murder couple/apocalyptic theme. If you have any suggestions, I would LOVE that.

It turned out, however much Bellamy didn’t want it to change them, Clarke dating Lexa had an effect. He didn’t _not_ like Lexa – for the record. She was fine. She was better than Finn, and Clarke had that same dopey look when she talked about her. It was just that Lexa didn’t seem to like _them_. Or, really, she avoided spending time alone with Clarke’s friends at all costs.

But Bellamy refused to let her change the group – not after last time. He hid his jealousy better this time, and Clarke didn’t bring it up again. He suggested inviting Lexa when they went out, and he put in every effort to get to know the newest member of the group. She just had a lot of walls, was all.

It was one night in February, a month or so since Clarke and Lexa had met, that Bellamy once again invited the two girls out with them. ‘Them’ being Miller, Monty, Jasper, Murphy, Raven and Wick. The group had grown a lot from the three musketeers it started off at.

They had both agreed, and it being Murphy’s night off, went anywhere _but_ the Drop Ship. Raven insisted they go on a pub crawl, so they did. Seven pubs in four hours, and they were laughing and stumbling down the street. Of course, some people held their alcohol better than others.

Clarke was a complete lightweight, she was drunk at the first place, while Bellamy took at least four for it to kick in. Monty and Jasper were gone pretty quickly, but they had been smoking weed in between so that was no surprise. Raven and Wick took quite a while to go, alongside Miller, and Murphy – well, Murphy purposely got himself as drunk as possible in the smallest amount of time as possible. He wasn’t allowed to drink at work, where he was surrounded by alcohol every night, so he drank six shots – “double vodka cubed” he’d called it – and pronounced himself King of Alcohol, and later King of Al-Co-Hol-Ic-Al-Ism, as he said it.

Lexa, however, well she was a different story. They had been to seven bars, drank like they hadn’t in a year, and were practically screaming down the road – while she was almost sober. She walked calmly with a smile on her face (which must have been the only clue to her _not_ being sober – the smile), and she could walk in a straight line. But she had drunk as much as the rest of them.

When Bellamy noticed this, he made his way over. Even though human contact made her shudder, she let him put an arm around her shoulder for balance, and she moved slightly closer to him to make it easier.

“How are you not drunk?” He asked through the slurs. She rolled her eyes.

“High tolerance,” she replied. Bellamy stared for a moment.

“What I’m hearing is witch craft.” Clarke’s girlfriend nodded, her smile growing a little.

“That’s exactly it. I’m a witch.” Bellamy grinned.

“I knew it!” He punched his fist into the air with triumph. “Would you be able to use some of your magic on me?” She raised an eyebrow but nodded anyway, humouring him. (Maybe she liked him a little.)

“Of course,” she replied.

“Would you…” he stopped to think, before starting again. “Would you use your powers to get a girl to like me?” He asked. She scoffed.

“You have a witch standing in front of you, and the first thing you do is ask for a girlfriend?” He shrugged, looking away before she felt her hand gently patting his back. “Poor Bellamy,” she mused. “Must be some girl if you’re going to use one of your three wishes on her.”

“Three wishes? You’re not a genie!” He cried. She shrugged.

“My father was a genie,” she told him. “My mother was a witch. Their powers got a little mixed up in me.” He nodded as if this was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“Makes sense,” he agreed.

“So what girl is it?” If Bellamy had been sober, he wouldn’t have told her. If he had been sober, he would have noticed who he was talking to, and how they sounded as if they actually could like him. He wasn’t sober though, so he spoke anyway.

“Well, Miss Witch, I have a crush on the Princess,” he said, gesturing grandly.

“The Princess?” She asked, her voice slowing. He was drunk, so he didn’t see her eyeing him carefully, or her hand no longer patting his back.

“Yes, the Princess.”

“You mean Clarke?” She asked. He shrugged. “You always call her ‘Princess’.” He shrugged again. “You want me to get Clarke to like you?” Bellamy looked away.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I don’t really want to like her.” Lexa raised an eyebrow.

“Why’s that?”

“Because she has a girlfriend. Her girlfriend’s not a witch though, like you. She’s not half bad – but I don’t think she likes me.” Lexa nodded before forcing a smile.

“Well, I’ll make a potion for you tonight,” she announced. “But I can’t promise anything.” He nodded, as if magic was really something that had so many ins and outs that it wouldn’t always work. It was completely sound to him.

“You’re great,” he told her. She smiled a little, and he looked away. Only a few minutes later was Lexa saying goodbye, telling them not to get into any trouble and kissing Clarke a little too long. Bellamy didn’t put two and two together though, so they kept going and he decided that he shouldn’t tell anyone about the witch that was going to get Clarke to fall in love with him.

He agreed to go to the play park, and he agreed to push Jasper on the swings, and he practically agreed to everything, so when Clarke announced that they should get tattoos, he agreed to that too. Miller, being the least drunk, had gone in first to ask for prices, and then the others had tried to sober up a little, because the place wouldn’t tattoo them if they were too drunk.

Jasper, Monty, Murphy, Raven and Wick insisted that it should be a best friend thing, not a whole group one, so Bellamy grinned and followed Clarke inside. He blindly agreed to the tattoo design and he nodded along, and when he woke up the next morning, he didn’t remember a thing.

 

Bellamy woke up to a bright light and a pounding in his head. The curtains were wide open and sunlight was streaming down onto his bed.

“You’re up!” A loud voice announced. He groaned, turning on his side and covering his ears with his pillow. Octavia held out a glass and he took it, wincing at the taste as he downed it in one. “Have a good night?” She was still talking louder than usual and Bellamy groaned at this.

“Fine,” he replied. He sat up, and that was the first time he felt the pain. “Shit,” he hissed. The pain was coming from his ass and he couldn’t really explain it. It just wasn’t great.

“What?” Octavia asked.

“My ass hurts,” he replied, shoving the pillow back over his face as he flopped onto his back again. Octavia snorted.

“Miller finally get to you, huh?” He rolled his eyes before throwing the pillow at his little sister, already leaving the room. But the pain persisted on the right butt cheek, so he eventually realised he’d have to get up and figure out what the hell it was.

When he did, he stumbled a little, before forcing himself out of his bedroom. He shuffled through the living room, checking the clock and finding that it was past noon. When he reached the bathroom he shut it carefully, sighing and trying to remember the night beforehand. But he couldn’t. He could get up to about the time when Jasper threw his shirt off and danced on the bar, or when Murphy got to a level in his drunkness when he went around, kissing every person he could reach – Bellamy included. But after Lexa buying them all another round at the fourth, maybe fifth, pub, he was clueless.

Bellamy sighed, shoving down his jeans that he’d gone to sleep in, and throwing off his shirt. In just his boxers, he searched through the under-sink cabinet to find Octavia’s smaller mirror, and then he pulled down his boxers. He angled the mirror and almost dropped it immediately. It was at the sight, the one that the only response he could think of was “shit, shit, shit, shit”.

There, on his right ass cheek, was a tattoo. But not just any tattoo, no, on his right ass cheek was a tattoo of a My Little Pony. Bellamy groaned, hitting his head against the wall a couple times before taking another look. Yes, it was a cartoon pony, with a crown and a long mane and tail. He begged to God that it was fake, but it looked very real and it hurt a lot. Even so, he needed a second opinion.

Bellamy groaned inwards, pulling his boxers back up and chucking the mirror back into the cabinet. He opened the door a little and poked his head out.

“O?” He called out.

“Yeah, Bell?” She replied.

“Could you come here for a moment?” Octavia came into view, arms crossing over her chest. “I need you to look at something.” Her face turned sceptical. “I think I got a tattoo on my ass last night.” Her look faded as she began to laugh. A lot.

“No way!” She cried. “Are you serious?” Bellamy nodded and gestured for her to come into the bathroom.

“I need you to tell me what the hell it is, and if it looks fake or not,” he instructed. Octavia nodded, albeit a little nervously.

“Didn’t you use a mirror?” She asked. He nodded.

“I need a second opinion.” Octavia nodded firmly, steeling herself to see her brother’s ass cheek. He pulled down half of his boxers, turning away from her, so she should just see the one half. Octavia burst out into laughter again.

“Is that a My Little Pony?” She asked, still laughing. Bellamy sighed.

“I’m afraid it is.” She cringed a little, moving closer.

“There aren’t any temporary plastic lines,” she told him. “I think it’s real. Do you know what pony it is?” He shook his head.

“I’m afraid to find out,” he replied honestly.

“I’ll google it.” Bellamy nodded, pulling his boxers back up with a sigh. He had a tattoo. Of a pony. On his ass.

“My Little Pony with a crown,” his sister murmured as she typed. As she did, Bellamy forced himself to remember the night before. And he did – a little bit. He remembered his friends saying that they wouldn’t get tattoos, and he remembered following Clarke and Miller inside. They must have them, too.

“Princess Celestia!” Octavia cried out at last. Then she started laughing again.

“What?” He asked, tugging his jeans back on, so he could look at least semi-presentable to go across the hall.

“You got the _Princess_ ,” she said, giggling. Bellamy knew she meant it in more ways than one, sighing and moving past her. He could still hear her laughter when he knocked on Clarke’s door.

Clarke answered and he could see past her into the living room, when Lincoln sat on the sofa.

“Hey,” she smiled.

“Do you have a tattoo?” He asked immediately. Clarke glanced backwards to where Lincoln was suddenly listening and she sighed.

“I thought I was the only one,” she admitted. “What did you get?”

“I really think you should go first,” he told her.

“No way, I asked first,” she insisted.

“Mine’s more embarrassing.” Clarke sighed, rolling her eyes.

“I have Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony,” she muttered. Lincoln burst out laughing from the sofa. Octavia did the same from the doorway behind him.

“Oh thank fuck,” he breathed. Clarke looked surprised as he smiled. “I have a My Little Pony on my ass, too.” She grinned.

“On your ass?!” Lincoln cried from the living room. “Clarke?! Is your tattoo on your ass, too?!” Clarke begrudgingly nodded. Octavia practically shrieked with laughter from behind him. Bellamy pulled her phone from his sister’s hand, dialling Miller. He heard Clarke ask which pony he had, but he didn’t want to answer it – not just yet.

“Yeah?” The phone answered. Bellamy clicked him onto speaker.

“Hey, where are you?” Bellamy asked.

“Monty’s.”

“Oh, we’re in the hall. Get out here.” Miller hung up immediately, and a few seconds later, shuffled out the door. “Did you get a tattoo last night?” Bellamy asked. Straight away he heard Monty laughing from in the apartment – they’d obviously already talked about this. Miller nodded stiffly.

“You’re not alone,” Clarke informed him. Miller sighed with relief, heading over. Both Monty and Jasper appeared in the doorway, and Lincoln arrived behind Clarke. “What one did you get?” She asked him.

Miller muttered something quietly, and Bellamy nudged his friend to speak up. He sighed, shutting his eyes for a second.

“Applejack,” he replied. The hallway was filled with laughter, and even Bellamy found himself grinning. He slapped his friend on the back with a smile.

“On your ass?” Bellamy asked. Miller nodded, ashamed. Then he looked up.

“What did you guys get?” He asked.

“Rainbow Dash,” Clarke admitted. Bellamy sighed. “What about you, Bell?” She asked. The hallway had gone quiet to listen, apart from Octavia giggling behind him. He glanced around to her, and she gestured for him to say it.

“Princess Celestia,” he said. There was silence before the uproar.

“A fucking _princess_?” Jasper asked happily. Bellamy took a breath and nodded.

“Hey,” Miller said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “At least you’ll have Clarke where ever you go.” The laughter became louder and Bellamy rolled his eyes, unable to keep in the smile any longer.

“Oh yeah. On my ass. Because that’s exactly where I want her.” Even Clarke giggled now. Bellamy sighed, looking around his friends before his eyes landed on Clarke. “I blame you, by the way.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because I distinctly remember it being _your_ idea.” She started to look offended before Monty chipped in.

“Actually – yeah, Clarke, it was your idea.” His best friend huffed, before pushing Bellamy and Miller towards his apartment.

“Whatever. I want to see your tattoos, let’s go.” Bellamy was shoved forward and he grinned at his sister, still laughing _. Fucking My Little Pony,_ he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my best friends.
> 
> As are tramp stamps.


	24. Nothing Satisfies But I'm Getting Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from 'All My Life' by Foo Fighters. (Do you understand how hard it is to find songs that give a feeling about bellarke or the 100? It's really hard.)
> 
> I pinky promise you that by today (Saturday) next week, this fic will have finished. If it hasn't, I'll be a bitch and leave it unfinished bar the last chapter, because I'm going away in a week.
> 
> There have been slight edits, in the second scene - it changes how you view Lexa a little, I think. (I hope.)

By May, Clarke and Lexa had been dating for four months. And Clarke had loved the vast majority of it. There were times when Lexa could be too much to handle, or she was so uninterested in something that it physically pained Clarke to like it around her. But after she voiced this, Lexa put in the effort to be nice.

She had even made sort-of friends with Clarke’s group. Well, apart from Bellamy. Back in January there was a time where Lexa hadn’t minded him, but something must have happened (Bellamy had no clue what, and Lexa wouldn’t talk about it) and suddenly she’d gone cold on the idea of him. But Clarke told herself Lexa was a work in progress – and that she’d been getting along with the rest of her friends, so a ninety-nine out of one hundred wasn’t bad. Not really.

Lexa hadn’t approved as much of the things they got up to; when she told the memories of trolley surfing, and playing hide and seek in museums, Lexa had just raised an eyebrow and changed the topic. Clarke always pretended that she didn’t notice.

In return, though, for Lexa getting to know Miller and the others, Clarke met Lexa’s friends. Anya, Indra and Nyko were three of the scariest people Clarke had ever met in her life – but they met at her home, when Lincoln was able to buffer; having met the trio before at the gym. Over time, they didn’t really _warm_ to her, but they weren’t completely outright in their hate.

And Lexa had kept her promise from the first night – there were so many things that Clarke had never done before, and Lexa did them all with her. The majority were fairly sexual, but Clarke had only ever had one other girlfriend, and they hadn’t gone very far, so the world of strap-ons and scissoring was new territory for her. Lexa made it her mission to know every part of Clarke’s body and Clarke couldn’t help but love it.

It was ten times better with Lexa than it had ever been with Finn, and she found herself unravelling underneath her touch. Even when reciprocating, Lexa had first walked her through it, before Clarke went on her own, tasting her girlfriend in ways she’d only imagined. Lexa never laughed, not really, but she would get close to it when reminding Clarke of that first day, when she’d never done it in a hallway before. This was usually happening in a public bathroom, the kitchen or the alley behind the Drop Ship (only once were they interrupted by Murphy, who stared for a moment before turning and walking back inside. “We’re never speaking of this,” he instructed when she returned after one of the best orgasms of her life.)

So, by May, she felt like she trusted Lexa – hell, she loved her. Clarke just wasn’t going to tell her that – at least, not outright. They lay back on Clarke’s bed – they hung out at her apartment more often due to Lexa’s scary roommates – panting heavily. Lincoln was out (really, he was across the hall with Octavia while Bellamy was out) and so Lexa had told her to be as loud as she wanted. Clarke had wanted to be loud, apparently. She was fairly sure Jasper and Monty could hear her down the hall.

“You trust me, right?” Clarke asked once she regained her breath. Lexa nodded, turning her head to her.

“Of course,” she replied. Clarke nodded, too worn out to smile.

“Good. I trust you, too.” They’re silent for a moment; just the sounds of their heavy breathing filling the room.

“Why do you ask?” Lexa said eventually. Clarke looked back to her girlfriend, brown hair splayed out across the pillow, blanket not properly covering her body. She could see her girlfriend’s breasts and so much of her wanted to roll over and continue what they were doing, but she knew she had to talk about this eventually. Plus, Clarke was knackered.

“I don’t talk about my family life much to people I can’t trust,” Clarke replied, turning back to the ceiling.

“You haven’t spoken to me about your family life,” Lexa pointed out.

“Exactly. Because I wanted there to be trust. And you trust me, and I trust you.” Lexa was silent for a moment.

“So, tell me about it.” She rarely heard any emotion in Lexa’s voice, but then, at eighty forty three in the morning, Clarke was sure she heard it. Her head turned to Lexa, and she studied her girlfriend’s eyes for a moment, judgingly. Then, she rolled onto her side.

“My mother has moved in with this guy,” she said first. “Marcus – he’s the police chief in Ark… I don’t know if they’re getting married, but they probably are. And it’s been, like, fourteen years since my dad died, but it’s still weird.”

“You don’t talk to your mum, do you?” Lexa asked. Clarke shook her head.

“Not often anymore. We used to, a lot, up until a year ago.”

“Why?” Clarke pursed her lips for a moment. She could trust Lexa. Hell, she _loved_ Lexa.

“Because if it weren’t for her, my dad might have lived through the car accident…” Clarke spoke for a while, eventually rolling over and staring at the ceiling as she relived each moment before Lexa. Her girlfriend listened patiently, asking her questions and prompting her through the topic. Clarke told her about the accident, about Marcus, about the day she returned home and left within hours. She described the times she’d been back – that she stayed with Miller more often than not, and the times her mother phoned her, trying to get her back.

She talked about Wells in his entirety – the way she avoided him since year eleven because they were different people. The way he’d loved her and the way she couldn’t return it. She spoke about her ex best friend, trying to keep her anger in, over his anger at her, at Bellamy and Miller – at her changes. Then she talked about her best friends. Bellamy and Miller. The situations they got themselves into, and she didn’t look at Lexa as she spoke about them – she didn’t want to see the disapproval in her eyes.

She knew she was unloading her pain, but as she got to the time, only six months or so beforehand, when she and Bellamy refused to speak, she slowed down. She felt Lexa’s hand squeeze her own, and finally turned to look back at her girlfriend. Lexa was a guarded person – she rarely showed her emotions and now was no different; she just watched Clarke talk about missing Bellamy with blank eyes.

At the end, Lexa sat up, letting the blanket drop from her body to reveal her toned stomach. But Clarke was staring at her face as she leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her lips. They stayed like that, slowly moving against the other, words not needed – or, words not able to be said. She wanted a response from Lexa, but each time she went to pull back, Lexa would deepen the kiss and she’d get lost in it all over again.

She wanted to know what she thought, if she liked her opening up, if she should keep it inside next time, but she couldn’t think straight anymore. She felt Lexa’s hand slide down her stomach and reach her crotch, rubbing up against it. Clarke sighed into her mouth, opening her legs up as Lexa moved further above her, dipping her fingers inside her girlfriend’s heat. Lexa didn’t move her mouth from Clarke’s until she was panting, unable to form words by herself.

Then, Lexa kissed down her jawbone to her neck before reaching her fingers. Lexa’s tongue unravelled Clarke instantly, and when she came down from her high, Lexa moved up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips.

“I’ve got class in twenty,” she said, standing up and pulling on her clothes.

Clarke’s mouth opened and closed in confusion as she watched from her bed.

“You have nothing else to say?” She asked as Lexa pulled on her jeans. Her girlfriend shrugged, looking away. She didn’t speak again until she was fully dressed.

“Your life story involves Bellamy a lot,” Lexa eventually announced with a sigh. Clarke’s eyes widened as she moved. She grabbed her duvet, pulling it around her as she followed Lexa out.

“We’re best friends!” She retorted.

“You’re best friends with Miller, too,” Lexa pointed out, opening the front door. “He was in that story far less than Bellamy.” Clarke watched, dumbfounded as her girlfriend headed off down the hall. She thought she heard her say “and he seems to like you too,” but she couldn’t be sure.

 

 

It was the next day that she spoke to Lexa again, but it was on very different terms. Clarke stormed up the stairs of her girlfriend’s apartment building, stopping to take a breath at her front door before pounding on it with her fist. Only seconds later did it open, revealing a tall woman with long brown hair like Lexa’s.

“I need to talk to Lexa,” she told Anya. The woman nodded, heading back into the apartment to find her roommate. The girls and Nyko rarely spoke, but they weren’t like Miller – his expressions were kind while theirs were cold and emotionless. It was like they were manufactured robots and now Clarke was more sure than ever that her girlfriend had no emotions.

Lexa came out of her bedroom, half dressed, before walking calmly over to the door. She tilted the corners of her lips up into what could be assumed to be a smile before leaning in to kiss Clarke. However, Clarke jerked backwards, her glare still planted on her face as she took a step back. Lexa sighed with a roll of her eyes, pulling the door shut behind her as she moved out into the hall.

“Morning,” Lexa said, eyeing her girlfriend carefully. Clarke looked Lexa up and down – she really was half dressed. Lexa had no qualms about her body and seemed very comfortable out in the hallway wearing a pair of shorts and a bra.

Clarke hummed for a moment. “What is it, Clarke?” Lexa asked.

“You were at the Drop Ship last night,” Clarke said blankly. Lexa nodded, dumbfounded.

“I’m there a lot,” she replied. “It’s sort of the closest pub.” Lexa spoke as if Clarke was the insane one, and that boiled her blood.

“You were there, kissing another girl.” Lexa froze, now. But she was an expert at masking her feelings, her face turning impassive after only a second.

“Where did you hear that?” She asked, her voice high at the edges, but still firm and dangerous.

“Murphy fucking runs the place,” she replied. “Where do you think I heard it from?” Lexa looked away from Clarke to watch a woman and her child walk out of the far apartment. The mother gave the two one look before hustling her kid down the stairs.

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” Lexa said eventually, but no part of her voice sounded sorry.

“Don’t feed me bullshit,” Clarke replied. “You were there, _cheating_ on me. After-“

“Clarke, I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“No!” Clarke cried. “Let me talk! Yesterday I opened up to you – I never open up to people. You said I could trust you!” Clarke’s voice broke a little around the word ‘trust’ and she looked away, blinking rapidly. She would _not_ cry in front of Lexa. “And hours later you’re dragging a girl from the bar.” Lexa looked away again and Clarke took another ragged breath, her eyes moving around the hallway before landing on her girlfriend again. “Who was she?”

“Costia,” Lexa said easily, with a hint of guilt. “I dated her for three years before she moved away. She came back and we saw each other – I couldn’t help myself, Clarke. It’s _Costia_.” Clarke had heard that name many times. It was the only time Lexa really opened up – when she was talking about her. Clarke knew about Costia - about Lexa's love for her. It was inevitable, Clarke thought as she swallowed. But, as the same time, it was still a betrayal. Her anger was clouding her, she knew it. But she still kept up with the assault.

The two women stared at each other for a moment, before Lexa glanced away and to her apartment.

“She’s in there, isn’t she?” Clarke asked. Lexa opened her mouth to speak, but for once, her eyes said it all. Clarke pushed past her, shouldering the door open and storming through the living room. She ignored the eyes of her roommate before she barged through into Lexa’s room. There, on her bed was a naked girl, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. The girl sat up.

“Took you long enough, Lex-“ she stopped when she saw Clarke. Clarke spun to face Lexa, in the doorway.

“Wow,” she said. “I guess I’ve been the other woman, and now the girl who’s been cheated on. How lucky am I?” Lexa reached out for Clarke’s hand but she shrugged her off.

“Clark-“

“No – stop it, Lexa. I _trusted_ you. And you did _this_.” She gestured wildly towards Costia, on the bed. “Fuck you, Lexa. It’s over.” She turned on her heel, stomping quickly through Lexa’s home. She heard her name being called out but ignored it, slamming the front door before running down the stairs.

She wouldn’t cry, not yet. But she heard footsteps behind her. Clarke made her feet pound harder on the stairs, but she could still hear Lexa’s voice.

“Clarke!” She called. “Please understand!  _Clarke_!” Clarke made her feet hit the floor harder, blocking out her words.

Out on the road, Murphy sat in his car, waiting. He’d come around early that morning to tell her, not wanting to disrupt her sleep when he got off work at two AM. Her breathing heavy and hitching, she slammed the car door after climbing inside. For once, Murphy didn’t tell her off for slamming it, he stayed silent.

Lexa rushed out onto the street and Murphy took a glance at her, half clothed. Her voice was muffled, but she could still make out Lexa’s pleas. She wasn’t asking for Clarke back – she was asking for her to understand. It didn't matter that she understood - not to Clarke. Understanding wasn't going to help her.

The moment she first swiped her hand roughly at her eye, Murphy turned on the ignition. The radio blared to life and he turned up the volume, pulling away from the curb. He let her cry in his car and he drove around Ground for a while, letting her pull herself together before thanking him. Murphy nodded.

“I guess we’re even for the frog thing, now,” he replied with a shrug and a hint of a smile. Clarke let out a small bark of laughter through her tears, letting her head rest against the window, watching the town pass her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we getting closer to the end? Yes. We still have a little way to go, and some loose ends to tie off. Tell me what you feel about this chapter - I was conflicted with the way I ended them. I sort of had Lexa understand in the same way Echo did, but she totally fucked Costia, too.
> 
> Comment and tell me what you think!


	25. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Bellamy bond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be honest - I'm quite worried about this chapter. This is the one thing that I'm not sure about in the entire story. And if it were someone else's, and more realistic, there might be an argument or something more solid than this - but I wanted to get it out of the way, and move back into beautiful friendship territory.
> 
> I'm still worried though.
> 
> Also, no more actual Lexa-sightings from here on out. I think I got more comments in the Clexa chapters than I have in the others, and most of them were referring to Lexa not being portrayed correctly or something along those lines. I don't know. But anyway: LEXA IS NO LONGER IN THIS STORY. DO NOT EXPECT HER. 
> 
> Chapter Title from 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' (what a shocker) by U2.
> 
> Also, approximately 5 chapters left.

It had been almost two weeks since Clarke’s break up, and Bellamy was still conflicted over his emotions. Sure, he was happy she was single again, and maybe he would _finally_ make a move – but his best friend was crying most days, and when he tried to comfort her she’d shrug away. Once, when his company had annoyed her, a few days after, she’d threatened to get her tattoo removed – which he never realised was a threat until that moment.

But, after almost two weeks, she’d calmed down a little, and so it wasn’t surprising to see her at his door, after Octavia had left a few minutes beforehand. Bellamy had a sneaking suspicion that his sister had gone to Clarke’s to hang out with Lincoln, but he wasn’t going to mention it. Instead, he focused on the short blonde in front of him, shoving her hands into the pockets of her over-sized jacket (read: Bellamy’s jacket which she _stole_ ).

He immediately moved to the side and let her pass, and noted that it was strange, him actually opening the door for her. They had a sort of friendship where, the majority of the time, they would just walk in on each other. After five years, they didn’t really have boundaries anymore – hell, they’d seen each other naked at least once, but those were memories that were best not to bring up.

Anyway, Clarke’s eyes were red and she flopped down onto the sofa as he followed. He sat down next to her, and her body automatically curled up into his. It was familiar, having her there, skin on skin and the feeling of her nuzzling her head closer into the crook of his neck. He could have happily sat there, holding her, forever – but he knew she had come round for a reason.

“What’s up?” He asked, not moving a single bit. Clarke just shrugged in his arms. “That’s a lie.” She huffed, pulling away a little to look at him, and he didn’t like the way his arms had to loosen from her body.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Bellamy furrowed his brow, watching her. “I’m really sorry.” She sighed, curling back up in his arms again, but Bellamy was still confused.

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for talking to Lexa,” she told him. Bellamy pulled away a little this time, studying her face. “I mean – I’m not sorry for dating her. Because I liked her. I mean, the day before we broke up, I said some stuff to her.”

“Like what?” Bellamy had no clue where this was going.

“Well, I broke up with her not just because she cheated on me,” Clarke explained, sniffing and rubbing her nose with the sleeve of his jacket. “But because the day she cheated on me, I had told her all the personal stuff, you know? Like, my parents, Wells, _us_. I told her all those things.” Bellamy nodded slowly.

“Why are you apologising for that?” He asked. “You did nothing wrong.” Clarke pulled away properly this time, to sit up and shake her head.

“But I did!” She insisted. “It took me almost a _year_ to tell you that stuff, and Miller learnt a couple of months later-“

“To be fair,” he interrupted “You weren’t very close with Miller at the time.” Clarke waved her hand in the hair, a gesture to say that she didn’t care.

“But _you_ , Bell, _you_ ,” she said. “You’re my best friend, and I trust you more than anyone – and it took a year to talk to you, but her only four months. That’s betrayal.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow, leaning out an arm and rubbing her back. She leant into it, flopping back over to use him as a support.

“It’s not betrayal,” he replied. “You loved her.” Clarke stiffened for a moment before sighing.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Yeah, I did.”

“You tell things to the people you love easier than you would to friends,” he explained.

“But I love you.” Part of Bellamy wished she was saying that in the way he loved her. But she wasn’t – he knew that plain and clear. That thought washed over his head and he had to shake it out before replying.

“But you didn’t love me as much then, as you did with Lexa now,” he replied, slightly strangled. Clarke would never love him as much as she loved Lexa – their love was different; platonic, friendly. The way she and Lexa were – that was serious. At least, it was on Clarke’s side. Lexa sort of ruined that.

Clarke didn’t reply for a while, and when she did, she sniffed first, cuddling up further into Bellamy’s side.

“It was betrayal,” she muttered. “I betrayed you.” He sighed, shaking his head. Her words were filled with raged emotion and he wanted her to feel okay again. At least, even the playing fields. He inwardly sighed, knowing it was time to tell her.

“It’s fine,” he replied sadly. “I betrayed you first.” Clarke sat up again and Bellamy sighed at her heat leaving his side. He already missed her being close to him. _You’re so screwed,_ he told himself.

“What do you mean?” She asked. Her voice was small and quiet, and it was the only time he’d ever truly seen her like this when it wasn’t the anniversary of her father’s death. And even on those days she could handle laughing. No – she was truly afraid this time, and Bellamy didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

“It was a while ago,” he told her, reaching out and taking her hand. He needed something to judge how she was feeling, but the rest of him just wanted to touch her. “Back in November.” He watched her think for a moment.

“You broke up with Echo?” She asked. He nodded.

“It was a week or so after that,” he told her. “And Raven came here. She said that Finn had told her that he loved you more than her – that she was a mistake.” He saw Clarke swallow and he could guess that she knew where he was going. “I was feeling pretty crap, and I knew what I was looking for. She knew, too, I guess – but, um, we also knew we wouldn’t find it with each other.” Clarke’s hand didn’t move from his, but he felt her squeeze his anyway.

“You had sex with Raven?” She asked. Bellamy nodded. He considered telling her that it was also because he was upset over Clarke only liking him as a brother - which she had drunkenly told him. But he decided it was best not to; she was already hurting over Lexa, he wouldn't add himself to that list. Clarke stayed silent for a while before putting on a smile and nodding herself. He could see she was still processing, but she also didn’t seem to mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bellamy shrugged.

“It didn’t seem like a good idea,” he replied. “Finn had loved both of you, and while I loved you, I had sex with her. Just, didn’t feel right, I guess.” He watched her nod before sighing.

“I wouldn’t call it a betrayal,” she said slowly. “But more like a dick move.” Then she shrugged. “Either way, we weren’t dating – there was no cheating, and you can have sex with whoever you want; Bell, it’s okay.” Bellamy smiled and Clarke grinned back, both wishing that their two month argument could have been this easy to solve. Clarke leant back into his grip and he wrapped his arms around her again.

“Did she stay the night?” Clarke asked. Bellamy scoffed.

“As soon as it was over, she got up and left.” His best friend laughed at that.

“Was she any good though?” He thought about it for a moment.

“I still have the scars on my back, if that’s any indication.” Clarke looked up at him and grinned, and he couldn’t help but take a mental snapshot of it. Her smile was beautiful and he wished he saw it every day. He wished she was closer to him, even though she lived a metre from his front door and she was wrapped up in his arms. He was already gone for her and he knew it. (That may have been a contributing factor to why the tyres of Lexa’s car had been mysteriously slashed a few days after the break up – but only three of them, so she couldn’t get the insurance to pay out for new ones.)

The two stayed silent for a while, before Bellamy looked at the clock.

“It’s not even eight yet,” he told her. Clarke glanced out the window.

“Yeah, it’s still light.” Bellamy froze for a moment before smiling.

“You want to go do something stupid?” He asked. Clarke didn’t hesitate before nodding.

“When don’t I?” Bellamy laughed and instructed her to put on something to go swimming in underneath her clothes. Clarke eyed him suspiciously but did as she was told and within minutes had arrived back at his apartment, his jacket still draped over her shoulders, hanging loosely by her sides. Bellamy had gotten changed too – into something easier to pull on and off, then he lead her from their homes and down the street.

He had a general place in mind, and ignored her constant pestering of ‘where are we going?’ as he walked. Half way along, he placed his arm around her shoulders, and she didn’t shrug him off, but move in closer. Bellamy was fairly sure that to strangers, they looked like a couple. This made him smile.

“I’ve been considering doing this since I first saw it,” he told her once they’d almost arrived. “And you have to do it now, considering we walked the whole way here.” She rolled her eyes.

“It’s not my fault your piece of shit on wheels ran out of fuel,” she retorted. He placed a hand to his chest in mock hurt.

“How dare you call the babe-mobile a piece of shit,” he replied. “That truck should be a national institution.” Clarke laughed and Bellamy liked the feeling he got from having caused it. He grinned, leading her into the centre of a courtyard.

On all sides were closed shops – the people who were there during the day had gone, and it was just the two of them and the birds. Well, and the fountain in front of him, which he was grinning at.

“I see why you wanted me to change,” she commented when she drew a line from his eyes to the fountain. It was still pumping water in large arcs and the bottom of the pool shone with lucky pennies. He grinned at the blonde by his side before stepping away and pulling off his t-shirt in one fluid motion. The short he was wearing doubled as swim shorts, and he slipped off his plimsolls, glancing down at his bare feet.

As he looked up, he caught Clarke watching before quickly turning away. He smirked to himself before she toed off her shoes and nudged down her shorts until they were around her ankles. Then she took off her jacket and t-shirt, and Bellamy grinned. Clarke wore her pink bikini, and she gestured for him to go in first.

The water was cold, and he could feel the spits from the fountains on his skin. The coins under his feet felt odd but he quickly became used to it. Then he held out a hand for his best friend. She grinned, gingerly stepping from the wall around the sides and into the water, where she winced at the temperature.

Quickly, he let go of her hand and reached down, splashing her with water. Clarke’s laughter immediately rang out as she returned the splash. Soon, it became a war between the two of them; hitting water in their other’s direction, before Bellamy misplaced a foot and came crashing down into the water.

He wasn’t hurt and immediately began laughing, as Clarke looked on in wide eyes. He grinned at her as she stepped closer, pulling her ankle out from underneath her so she fell in his direction. Bellamy caught her with a laugh, Clarke sitting in his lap.

It became a blur of splashing and pushing around the water, their laughs ringing off the walls of the courtyard and Bellamy being so sure that he loved her, that he couldn’t help himself from staring. At one point, he grinned harder than before.

“I can see your tail, Miss Rainbow Dash,” he teased. Clarke immediately tried to see her ass, where the bikini had ridden up to show off the tail of the My Little Pony she was plagued with. She tugged it down.

“Well, _Princess_ ,” she replied in reference to his own tattoo. “Why were you looking?”

“Ah, _Princess_ , you should know – as royalty, we can do whatever the hell we want!” Clarke burst out laughing and Bellamy smiled so hard his cheeks ached. He could help but watch her; her halo of blonde hair flying about her shoulders, and her blue eyes sparkling in the dying light. She was beautiful, and Bellamy wondered if she knew it.

The fun had to come to an end though – and, for them, it was when the police man rounded the corner, and yelled at them to get out of the fountain. Bellamy’s eyes widened and met with Clarke’s, and he urged her from the water before getting out himself, slipping his feet back into his shoes as she tugged the straps over her heels. He collected their clothes into his arms and ran, hearing her feet slapping directly behind him.

The policeman wasn’t too far behind for the first minute or so, but as they kept going, he began to slow, and the two of them laughed into the evening. They slowed to a walk a road or so away from home, and he passed her clothes back to her (including his jacket). Their breathing was heavy, and Clarke’s face had gone from slightly tanned to red.

But they grinned at each other and giggled like children anyway, until they reached Clarke’s apartment. She opened the door and he followed her inside, finding his younger sister and Lincoln sitting on the sofa, engaging in a cut-throat game of Mario Kart. Lincoln paused the game when the entered, looking up. Octavia turned only a moment after.

“What the fuck happened to you two?” She asked. Bellamy and Clarke looked at each other – at the damp clothes in their arms and their bodies, clad only in swimming clothes and shoes. Bellamy shrugged.

“We were apologising to each other,” he said. He didn’t even have to look to know that Clarke was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still worried about this chapter. I've edited it multiple times, but really, I just didn't want to go through the hassle of adding at least two more chapters of betrayal over the Raven thing. Hopefully this is okay? Tell me if I need to add anything for actual development, and tell me what you liked. I legitimately squeal over the nice comments.


	26. Everything Looks Better When The Sun Goes Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weddings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys remember, at the beginning of the story, I said there would be twenty chapters? Hm, yeah, I've gone over that mark. I think (THINK) there are thirty in total, meaning we're getting to the end of the story! I'd like to thank you guys so much for reading, and sticking with it, and for all of the AMAZING comments - I really didn't think you guys would be so great and so appreciative of my writing.
> 
> I'm starting another piece, hoping to make another twenty chapter one in the next month or so, so if you have any prompts that you love and want to see as an adventure, please send them to me in a comment, to my twitter or my tumblr (both bowlingfornerds).
> 
> Alternatively, I'm considering doing quick short stories after this IN THIS UNIVERSE. So, with this gang, and with their stories that I might not have covered as much - meaning, more three musketeer adventures and showing you what might be happening in their life after this story ends.
> 
> If you like any of those ideas, please please PLEASE tell me - because if people aren't going to want to read them, I don't see much point in writing them. THANK YOU.
> 
> Chapter Title From 'Make Me Wanna Die' by The Pretty Reckless.

Sure, Miller had been to weddings before. He remembered being a child and being dragged all over the place in too-small suits, watching people he didn’t know talk in front of a crowd. It had all been fairly boring to him – but, then again, he’d never been to his _father’s_ wedding.

The first time David Miller had gotten married, his son, Nathan, was two and a half years away, and just a distant dream. This time, as a forty-odd year old widower, David could be married to the beautiful woman he loved, with his son by his side.

And Miller wasn’t too distressed over the idea of going. The exams for their final year at university had just finished a couple of weeks beforehand, and Miller was done. He never had to step foot in that place again if he didn’t want to, and that thought pleased him to no end. His father was getting married in Ark, so Miller left his apartment in Ground, knowing he had more than a month left on the rental agreement, so he could help out with the final preparations.

His friends, Clarke and Bellamy had both been invited, along with Octavia (another one of Eva’s little pet projects) and Miller’s boyfriend, Monty. Those three were all going to be in the audience, watching his father get married, as he stood by his side as his best man.

His father had asked him to take on the role during a phone call in late January, whilst Miller was working on a paper. He’d phoned to make sure that his only child was still doing okay in the three weeks they hadn’t seen each other, and asked.

“Of course, Dad, did you really have to ask me?” Miller had responded, leaning back in his desk chair. He heard his father’s laugh down the line.

“Eva told me it’s common curtesy,” he explained. Miller rolled his eyes, spinning in the chair.

“Has she asked for a maid of honour?” He asked.

“Yes, her cousin – do you remember Amy from her birthday during the summer?” Miller winced in thought, coming up short.

“Sure,” he lied.

“Well she’ll be head bridesmaid, and you can dance with her at the reception,” David Miller told his son. Miller sighed.

“Why do I have to dance with her?” He asked.

“Tradition,” his father replied. “At my first wedding, my best friend and Morgan’s best friend danced, so you’re going to at this one.” Miller tipped his head back onto his chair with another groan. “Don’t complain – at the first wedding, we were all rooting for them to get together. I’m not going to ask this of you.” Miller laughed at that.

“Good, I don’t think it would work out so well,” he replied.

“Me neither – there’s just something I can’t put my finger on about a twenty five year old married woman, dating my twenty one year old gay son.” Miller chuckled.

“Maybe it’s the age difference,” he grinned.

“Mm – that must be it,” his father had agreed with a laugh.

Now, as he stood at the front of the isle next to his father, the conversation popped into his mind again. He was happy for his father – truly. There was just something about Eva that he loved, something so happy and house-proud; her business talk when she discussed depositions and trials over the dinner table, or the way that she was so motherly, even to the man who was not her son. None of them cared that Eva was ten years older than Miller – she was as much of a mother as he was going to get in his life. He loved her for that.

He looked out across the congregation, still whispering to each other before the service began, and his eyes locked onto Monty’s. His boyfriend gave him a smile and a thumbs up, next to Clarke on the bench. His four friends sat there happily, talking amongst themselves, and he couldn’t help but try to picture his own wedding. He wasn’t all that surprised when his subconscious placed Monty in front of him.

Even so, and the brief smile that flickered over his face, the image was soon recreated with the more likely wedding he would have to attend first – of his best friends. Clarke and Bellamy’s wedding would be something for the ages, he knew. And he was still serious about objecting if he wasn’t granted vows like the other two. He had a feeling they would go along the lines of calling it, in that first week he met Clarke (“Bell, man, you’re looking at her weirdly.” “Am not.” “Are, too.” “Am not.” “Dude, you like her. Just marry her already.”), mentioning the amount of times he cockblocked them (“Oh shit, were you two about to kiss?” “Miller!” “Okay, look at me all angry – fine, just kiss next time even if I’m around.”) or maybe just that he always saw the way they liked each other.

Then again, he would have to save something for the speech at the reception, so his vows were likely to come down to him promising to buy the two of them a lock for their door, to still be friends with both of them if they divorce, and to be the best damn babysitter this side of the equator. He felt like he could do those things.

Then, the music started up, and Miller dragged his eyes from his friends, shooting straight to the end of the church. The bridesmaids came out first, one by one. At the front was Eva’s cousin, Amy – her pregnancy barely showing underneath her dress, and her husband grinning at her from the pews ( _there’s another reason we’re not getting together,_ Miller thought to himself). There were three more after her, but he didn’t know their names, just that they wore red dresses that went to their knees, and bright smiles.

Finally, Eva appeared.

Miller had always known she was beautiful – from the first glimpse of her, running and giggling on high heels through the house with his father, to when he met her officially, naked in the bathroom, to the last few years of his life. But it was on an entirely different level now.

Miller wasn’t one for fashion, so he wouldn’t be able to describe how she looked in a way that she deserved. But he knew her dress was strapless, white, curving around her frame and flaring out at the hips. She wore a veil, but wouldn’t let it cover her face, and held a bouquet of white and red roses in front of her. To her left, an older, greying man walked her down the aisle.

The congregation stood for them, and watched as she floated past, looking as if she were on cloud nine. When she reached the front of the church, her father kissed her cheek and handed her off to Miller’s father. He watched, unable to stop smiling as the two grinned at each other and stood before the priest. It was a match made in heaven, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking.

He listened intently, smiling at their vows and grinning at the jokes. The whole time, he couldn’t help thinking about this being such a great way to express love. He’d never really paid attention at a wedding – but the idea was for a couple to show their friends and family how they felt. The image of he and Monty skipped across his mind again, but he didn’t care. He was comfortable with it – comfortable with the idea of he and Monty being something more. Of Monty not being the only one in love in this relationship.

Miller smiled to himself at that thought – he knew he’d get there eventually.

Part way through Eva’s vows, she leant across her groom and took Miller’s hand with a smile. She pulled him closer, refusing to move her eyes from his. He didn’t need to look at his father to know that he was grinning, too.

“And, Nathan, I will promise a lot of things to your father – I will promise a lot more than I have said today,” she said. “But I want you to know that I promise this to you, as well: that I will love you, and be there for you, and that you’ll always find a home with me. Nathan, I promise that I will always stand by you, and back you up in your arguments against your dad when I know he’s wrong-“ Miller’s grin got bigger, if that were possible “-and I _promise_ , overall, that I may not be your mother, but I will be whatever you want me to be; mother, step-mother, just Eva. I will love you all the same.”

Miller swallowed, smiling and looking down at their hands for a moment before looking back to her. His jaw tensed, trying to stop his eyes from watering as he nodded. He gave her hand a quick squeeze, telling her without words (the way he was so used to communicating) _I love you, too,_ before their hands separated and she took a hold of David’s once more.

Miller stepped back to his place, watched and not even hiding when he lifted his hand up to run it over his eyes. It came back slightly damp but he didn’t care – he was lucky to have Eva in the first place.

 

 

At the reception later, Miller sat at the first table with his father and step-mother. He also had Monty with him, more to keep him entertained than because his parents were close to him. A table away sat Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia, and he didn’t miss them throwing their balled up napkins at the back of his head when he wasn’t looking.

Miller may have been speaking more than he used to, but talking in front of a crowd wasn’t something he wanted to do. He explained this to his father months before, when David had asked if he wanted to do the speech or not. Neither David nor Eva minded that he said no – they understood fairly well how little Miller spoke when he wasn’t comfortable around people.

So David’s best friend did the speech, starting it off with “Twenty three years ago, I made a speech at David’s wedding. I never thought I’d do it again, but, David, if you used the same caterer, I can use the same speech, right?” A ripple of laughter had spread across the room at that, and Miller smiled, happy it wasn’t him up there. When his father stood to make his thank you speech, Eva stood with him, not wanting to follow a tradition that said she wouldn’t talk in this.

Needless to say, she spoke the most out of the two.

At one point, they mentioned Miller, smiling down at him, thanking him for accepting Eva so easily, and being a part of the day. Later, relatives came up and asked him why, as the best man, he didn’t give the speech. Miller would stumble through a sentence before Eva would poke her head in, every time without fail, and pull him away from the conversation. He was so lucky to have her.

Day turned to dusk, and the music went from slow for the first dance, to upbeat as people joined in dancing. Miller had been dragged out there enough times, and even had the stupid dance with Eva’s cousin, who told anti-jokes throughout the entire thing (“Why did Sarah fall off the swing? Because she had no arms. Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Not Sarah.”). And he danced with Eva once or twice as she giggled and stepped on his feet. But, as night approached, and he watched as Bellamy spun his sister and other best friend around on the dance floor, Monty joined Miller.

He handed him a glass of champagne, and Miller smiled appreciatively. Looking at his boyfriend now, Miller knew this was as good a moment as any.

“You want to go outside?” He asked. Monty nodded and Miller took his free hand, pulling him through the crowd until they reached the double doors that opened to the garden.

Eva had wanted the reception to be there purely because of the lights. And now the doors were open, Miller knew that people would be coming out to look at the perfectly trimmed garden of flowers and bushes, interspersed with small glass tables with metallic chairs. He only had a few minutes, really.

Monty followed him to a wall, near the outside of the garden. There, Monty leant against it, and Miller couldn’t help but stand, one leg in between his, close enough to kiss him. The space was closed fairly quickly, and Monty’s lips were fast to react on his. It was only a second or so before Miller found his boyfriend’s tongue and the next few moments were spent there, interlocking, holding each other with one arm, while the other held a glass.

When Miller pulled away, he smiled at Monty.

“Good excuse to go outside for,” Monty commented with a smirk. Miller rolled his eyes with a smile, taking Monty’s free hand in his and giving it a quick squeeze. He struggled to find words for a moment, opening his mouth and shutting it as he thought. He knew he wasn’t always able to talk, but he’d had it in his mind since he was young that if he had something important to say, he would say it. Only, this felt too important. The words just weren’t coming to him.

Monty smiled a little, giving Miller’s hand a reassuring squeeze. And while Miller was grateful, he moved out from Monty’s legs and sat next to him on the wall, his hand still gripping his boyfriend’s.

“It’s okay if you don’t know what to say,” Monty told him quietly.

“But I do,” Miller complained to himself. “I know what I want to say-“

“But you can’t?” Monty finished. Miller nodded with a sigh, sipping at his drink and ignoring the bubbles that fizzed in his throat. “Take your time,” his boyfriend added, sipping some of his own champagne. He nodded again, steeling himself. This shouldn’t be that hard, he thought. It should be easy – they’re three words and he’s said so many more before now.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, breathing in the cool air and listening to the dulled thumping of the music. From where they were, the lights of the reception were bright and shifting, and Miller could make out the shapes of different people through the windows. Monty’s head leant against his shoulder and Miller just kept breathing.

When he was little and couldn’t speak – back then, it was because he wasn’t ready to; scared to – he would breath first. He took heavy breaths, remembering the moments when he was called on in class, or a relative would expect an answer. But he knew this wouldn’t be like those times – he and Monty had sat in silence for hours before. Monty wouldn’t get angry and yell, nor would he send him out of class, or make him go outside, or tell his father that there’s something fundamentally wrong with him.

No, Monty would be patient and wait. Miller loved him for that.

And that was it – he could think it so easily. He could picture Monty and know, _I love you_. But he couldn’t make the words form in his mouth. Usually, in these times, Monty would be okay with talking instead. The man could speak forever and not run out of topics – it’s one of the reasons they worked so well. But he knew that Monty had sensed it was important – he wasn’t just going to talk over it, but wait to see what happened.

And Miller knew something had to happen.

He cleared his throat, feeling Monty tense a little in waiting. Then he counted to five in his head, slowly and calmly, taking deep breaths on each number.

“Monty,” Miller said slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the bush directly in front of them. Monty didn’t move from his position, but sat still, waiting. “Monty, I, um, I-“ Miller took a few more breaths. It wasn’t like him to be afraid of talking – that was him from before he met Bellamy. Post-Bellamy was tougher than this. But he guessed the words were making him scared – they were scary words, after all. “Monty,” he started again. This time, he felt Monty’s hand squeeze his reassuringly, and his worries drifted further from him.

Miller loved this guy, he did. And he knew that if Monty could sit and wait for him to catch up, he could say things that scared him. Hell, it must have been scary for Monty to say it in the first place – especially knowing that Miller didn’t feel the same way. And it had been _six months_ since then. That must have been scarier than saying it, knowing the other person felt the same way. He smiled a little to himself.

“Monty, I love you,” he said at last. Miller’s voice was less strained than he thought it would be, and his words slipped out more comfortably than he thought they would. Monty removed his head from Miller’s shoulder, giving his boyfriend a large smile. Their lips were pressed together, and Miller couldn’t help but smile through the kiss.

“I love you, too,” Monty said when they pulled apart, before going right back to kissing him. This time, Miller moved away, still smiling, before rest his head into the crook of Monty’s neck with a sigh.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said into Monty’s suit jacket.

“Don’t ever worry about that,” Monty replied firmly. “You said it – that’s what matters.” Miller nodded into his boyfriend, before kissing his way back up Monty’s neck, to his jaw, and then to his mouth again. Miller may have been lucky to have Eva, but he was luckier to have Monty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These guys have been giving me major feels.
> 
> We're SO CLOSE to the end now! Only a few more chapters left!  
> Thanks for reading, and please talk to me in the comments. I had a few questions in the notes at the beginning, and if you have any thoughts, please send them to me!
> 
> This is also the last Miller POV chapter! If, in the short stories I may write, you want to see more of his POV and story, please tell me! Also I have no idea what David Miller's first wife was called - so, I called her Morgan. 
> 
> Thank you!


	27. In A Sky Full Of Stars, I Think I See You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The summer after graduation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: There are twenty nine chapters in all. THIS MEANS THERE ARE THREE CHAPTERS LEFT.
> 
> This is a six thousand word chapter - the longest one you're going to get, and from the point of view of Clarke. I WILL be writing more short stories about their lives after this one, maybe inspired by what you'll see in the final chapter. So if you want to read more of these, subscribe to the series this is in called 'All For One, and One For All', based on them being called the three musketeers.
> 
> By subscribing to the series, you'll receive emails whenever I post new updates to this universe. 
> 
> Chapter Title from 'A Sky Full Of Stars' by Coldplay.

On the 17th of July, they received their grades from university. Clarke was over the moon, coming out with a first in Art History. Likewise, Bellamy got a first in Classics, and Miller a second in biology. The Teach First course had accepted both Clarke and Bellamy, to learn to be teachers over the summer and start teaching in a school in Ground by September. There was absolutely nothing holding them back and they knew it.

On the day they graduated, Raven and Wick watched in the audience with Monty, Murphy and Jasper, all staying on for another year of university, as the three best friends, separated out across the crowd, accepted their degrees and chucked their hats in the air alongside everyone else. Clarke’s mother was in the audience somewhere, but at that moment, Clarke really, _really_ didn’t care. She had graduated university – she was done with cardboard microwave meals and essays due the next day. But, she was also going to miss it so much – she happened to like the ready meals that burned in the microwave, and the pressure of a deadline.

She was going to miss the day they pulled the table out from the common room in Wick’s dorm and moved it into the lift, where they played poker. She hated the fact that she wasn’t going to be learning art anymore – but she had already learnt it all.

Even so, she was going to still be in Ground, with her best friends only minutes away. She wasn’t going to be struggling on loans anymore, but have an actual job, and she wouldn’t have to watch Bellamy juggle two jobs and his work load – but settle down as a teacher and know that he could pay Octavia’s way through university. Even though she wasn’t her responsibility – she felt the relief, too.

After the ceremony, she spent time hugging her friends, taking photos and waiting for the inevitable moment when Abby Griffin would arrive and ruin the fun. It was a while before that happened though, so Clarke cherished those twenty minutes with her best friends; the hug Bellamy gave her where he picked her up from off the ground and span her around; recreating the prom photo as she was lifted up by her best friends (“light as a feather,” Miller told her with a wink) and generally getting ready to miss the last three years of her life.

When she spotted her mother, Abby Griffin was standing a little bit away from the group, watching with a small, but fond, smile. Clarke took a breath before heading over to her, and let her mother hug her for all of three seconds before pulling away again.

“I’m so, _so_ proud of you,” Abby told her daughter. “How does it feel, to be graduating?”

“Good,” Clarke replied. “But I’m going to miss this place.”

“Of course you will,” Abby sighed with a smile. “University is one of the greatest memories you’ll have.” They talked like that for a little while, before Clarke asked where Kane was. “He sat this one out,” Abby replied. “You two didn’t get to know each other very well, so he thought you might be uncomfortable with him being here.” Clarke just nodded. Part of her wondered when her mother was going to remarry – but it was a question Clarke would have asked if it were two years earlier. Now, she didn’t want to know as much, and it wasn’t really her place to ask anymore.

Half way through the conversation, Bellamy joined, leaning an arm across her shoulders.

“Hey Ms Griffin,” he smiled lazily. He had been basking in the lack of school work since his last exam; something about Bellamy without a plan appealed to Clarke, really. But she loved it more when he was in a determined state of mind. Then again – she would rarely get to see such a laid back grin if he was working constantly in ‘the real world’, as he called it.

“Bellamy,” Abby smiled politely. “Congratulations on graduating. Is your sister here, too?” Bellamy nodded.

“She wouldn’t miss it.”

“Will she be going to university in the Fall?” Bellamy smiled a little brighter – he always did when talking about Octavia.

“Yeah, here at TonDC,” he replied.

“So you’ll be staying here as well?” He nodded.

“For the time being. I’m hoping to get a job in one of the schools around here, as well, though.” Abby nodded slowly for a moment.

“Clarke, wasn’t that your plan, too?” She asked. Abby knew it was her plan. Clarke had told her some months before, in a phone call that didn’t make her want to drown her sorrows opposite Murphy trying to chat up a girl.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We’re sticking together for a bit longer.” The look Abby gave them was a little suspicious, but Bellamy didn’t seem to notice it like Clarke did. She watched her mother look between the two of them, and not long after, the conversation ended and Abby kissed her daughter’s forehead before leaving.

“It’s official,” Miller complained when they returned to the group. “We’re old.” Clarke and Bellamy laughed as Miller sighed. Next to him, Monty snickered.

“You’re the same age as us,” Clarke pointed out to him. Jasper grinned.

“But we’re still in uni,” he replied. “We’re not expected to get jobs or be sensible-“

“So you can be utter prats for the next year?” Bellamy finished. Raven nodded enthusiastically, and next to her, with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, Wick smiled.

“It’s the whole point in coming to uni,” he agreed. “But you guys are going to be adults now – like, boring people.” Clarke sighed, they had a point. They were adults – rent paying, tax paying, bill paying adults. She noticed that being an adult was already costing her a lot of money.

Then, Clarke had an idea.

Her face must have lit up because Bellamy was looking down at her with narrowed eyes.

“What?” He asked. Clarke grinned up at her best friend (sometimes it felt like he grew taller every time she looked at him).

“I’ve got an idea,” she said, looking from him to Miller. Lincoln and Octavia took that moment to join the group, and Clarke didn’t miss the way that his arm was draped over her shoulders.

“That’s never good,” Lincoln said with a smile. She shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“It’s not a good one, but at the same time, it’s a _great_ _idea_.” Her friends looked at her wryly, waiting for it to explode in her face. Her roommate stared at her, a little scared, after knowing the way her ideas went downhill, after two years of dealing with her experimental cooking and _we should collect all of the empty bottles and make a sculpture of them, how great would that be_?

It was a shame Lincoln’s course had him in university for another year. He was going to miss her becoming an adult.

“Do you remember,” she started, looking from Miller to Bellamy. “A couple of years ago, we stole trolleys-“

“No,” Miller immediately said. “We are not doing that again.” She looked at him with pleading eyes.

“Please,” she begged.

“Aw shit,” Wick said. “She’s pulling out the puppy dog eyes.”

“You can’t say no to her,” Jasper agreed. Bellamy grinned from next to her.

“I was on board before she started, but I’ll do it ten times now,” he said.

“I’m made of stone and I would say yes,” Raven added on the end. Miller remained blank for a moment longer before sighing.

“Fine,” he agreed. Clarke immediately jumped in the air, clapping her hands. “But this time, no crashing into cars.”

“I can’t promise that,” she replied straight away. Miller sighed, exasperated.

 

Less than an hour later, Miller, Bellamy and Clarke were standing at the top of a hill. It wasn’t too steep – they’d learnt that lesson the hard way – and it was more quiet, residential, than a main road – also had to be learnt through trial and error. They each held a trolley in front of them, the yellow and red Morrisons logo on the handles, staring at the road in front of them.

Clarke felt slightly giddy with happiness. She was about to be an adult – she might as well start it off with an injury, right?

Standing behind the three of them were their friends, watching and waiting. None of them were stupid enough to actually try it, and Octavia was simply banned for life after Clarke crashed into a car and the three of them had to run as the sirens went off, last time. She took a breath, swallowing and then smiling. She was only slightly nervous, but not enough not to do it.

“You guys ready?” She asked, looking either side of her. On her left, Miller nodded, stone-faced. On her right, Bellamy sighed.

“As I’ll ever be, Princess.” She grinned before looking back to her friends.

“Three of you,” she instructed, nodding her head to finish the sentence. Wick moved forward first, taking the handle of Clarke’s trolley. After that, Monty took Miller’s trolley, and Octavia came forward for Bellamy’s. Jasper, Murphy, Lincoln and Raven watched nervously.

“This is a really bad idea,” Jasper called from behind as Clarke moved to the side of the trolley.

“A really bad idea,” Murphy agreed.

“We know!” She replied happily. “Keep it steady,” she instructed Wick. He nodded and she put her feet on the sides, climbing into the base. She sat down, the metal walls around her. She looked up at Wick with a smile, which he returned happily. The boys on either side of her were now seated.

“Go to the bottom of the hill,” Bellamy called out to the others, watching. “You need to catch us if it goes wrong.” They started moving forward, but after a bit of nervous shuffling, Jasper took hold of the handle of Clarke’s trolley, and Wick laughed, ruffling his hair and joining the catching party.

“Good call,” Clarke commented as he left.

The road was pretty clear of cars, and Clarke had been placed in the middle in case she hit one of the few remaining. She was fairly sure that she could do more damage, crashing into one of the boys, from this place, but they refused to listen to her. She was now waiting, staring down the road in front of her. The air around her quietened in tension; the moment they were to spring off from the top of the hill and go soaring down the road.

She wondered if this would be like the future; free-falling forwards into her actual life like an untrustworthy trolley down a hill. It was dangerous and scary, and she had no idea what would happen by the end of it. But she still wanted to go for it anyway; the scars and the possibility of pain would just side-track her.

Clarke wished to keep this mentality about her forever.

She looked over to Miller, resting his head back on the fold-out seat. His eyes were shut and Clarke would guess that he was praying to stay alive. She smiled at that. Her best friend, praying and hoping that a trolley wouldn’t be the death of him.

Then she looked to Bellamy. He was looking straight ahead, watching their friends get into position at the bottom of the hill. His curly hair was reaching his ears, and Clarke tried to remind herself to ask him to cut it. His skin was still the same shade as when she had met him; a constant tan yet dotted with freckles that reminded her of stars and universes. Clarke knew she was in trouble of falling for his boy; hell, she probably already had. He was her perfect person and in this moment, more than any before, Clarke wanted him to know that.

She wanted to take the unstable trolley ride down a hill to their future with him. She wanted him to be the one to catch her at the bottom, as well as the one to push her from the top.

And as if he could sense she was looking at him, Bellamy turned his head. His eyes met hers, and for a second it was as if he understood all of her thoughts; everything she was thinking. To Clarke, that could have been very possible.

But the moment was broken by the shouts from the bottom of the hill.

“Ready?” Jasper asked. They all nodded and braced themselves, Clarke gripping the top of the trolley, knowing that putting her fingers through the holes could end disastrously. She took a few breaths and felt Jasper moving the trolley back and forth. It was calming at the same time as being a tension builder.

He’d obviously gotten into the idea of the situation being a lot like bob-sledding, and started calling out the _Cool Runnings_ lines.

“Feel the rhythm!” Jasper yelled. “Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it’s trolley time!” Immediately, life soared into the trolley and she was moving. The wind hit at her face, and Clarke’s eyes shut for the first few seconds. She heard Miller’s cries of happiness, screaming past her down the road and she couldn’t help but open her eyes to look at him.

Miller, louder than she’d ever before heard him, his hands gripping the top of the trolley and his mouth open wide in laughter. Bellamy, likewise, laughed in the trolley to her right. His head was tipped back and his eyes shut; relishing in the cold wind and the feeling of complete weightlessness.

Clarke screamed in delight, joining her friends. She heard the rattling of the wheels and the slapping of shoes as the people from the top of the hill ran after them. The only senses she had left were her sight and sound. The wind had hit her face until it turned numb, and she was going too fast to feel anything else. She could just see the world rushing past her and hear the sounds of her friends.

And for that moment, she felt truly weightless.

That all came crashing down, though.

The wheels on her trolley started spinning in the momentum; her friends, heavier and going faster than her sped ahead, leaving her to swerve uncontrollably. Clarke knew there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t stand, get out or slow it down. She would only get injured more.

So as the trolley spun, she shut her eye, taking long breaths, clutching tightly to the rim of the trolley and hoping that she would be okay. The next thing she knew, she was in the air. She was sideways, flying through space, and she heard the trolley crash and hit the ground behind her. It was a long way off though. It was in the past, and all she knew now was the feel of the ground. It bumped and bruised her, letting the momentum she gathered melt away along the tarmac.

Pain blossomed in her right wrist, but she kept her eyes clamped shut. If this went even worse, she didn’t want the last thing she saw to be the world spinning; shuddering and jerking in front of her. No, they last thing she would have seen was the road looming ahead of her, her friends at the bottom, cheering; her best friends either side of her, laughing and screaming.

When she stopped moving, Clarke sighed, rolling onto her back and letting out a breath of relief. The pain was solid in her wrist and she opened her eyes at last, to see the bright daylight above her. The sky was almost cloudless; endless blue with hints of white. Then, Jasper appeared above her, followed by Octavia and Monty. They said words but she didn’t think about them.

All of her thoughts were consumed by the fact that she’d done it _again_. The last time she’d ridden a trolley, she crashed into a car; this time it was the ground. Laughter bubbled up in her throat a broke out, making the people above her sigh with smiles. Sure, Clarke’s wrist hurt, but she was fine. She’d be fine.

There were more footsteps sounding out against the road and suddenly Jasper and Monty were being pushed aside. Above her, Miller and Bellamy stood, immediately crouching down and pulling her slightly delirious body up into a sitting position. Miller held her up, giving her arm a quick squeeze with a smile.

“You’re okay,” he breathed. She nodded, grinning. On her other side, Bellamy brushed the hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. His calloused fingers ran down the skin of her cheek, caressing it gently, as if to make sure that she was real. _I’m real,_ she thought, meeting his eyes. His eyes left hers first, darting down to her wrist that she clutched. She looked down after, finding her left hand damp with blood.

“How bad does it hurt?” Bellamy asked, gingerly picking up her wrist. It was a six out of ten at worst, and she knew it was broken. But she didn’t mind. It was a surface wound that caused the blood and she’d wear a cast or a splint. It would be a story. This whole day would be a story and she loved that. She laughed again.

“Not bad at all,” she replied with a grin. Bellamy’s eyes glanced up to hers before focusing on the wound again. She knew there were voices from all around her, asking questions, _what happened, are you okay, did you lose control,_ but she wasn’t paying attention to them; just to the boy in front of her. She remembered the first day she met him, feeling as if her eyes couldn’t look directly towards Bellamy because he was as bright as the sun. Even now, she corrected herself like she did on that first day – not the sun, but the universe; a galaxy of freckles and an other-worldly look in his eyes.

Later, she’d find out that Miller shushed her friends, knowing what was going to happen next. She’d find out how they watched; how Monty pulled out his phone to get a picture; how they smiled, breathing a collective sigh of relief; _at last._

But she didn’t know that as it happened.

As it happened, she could only focus on Bellamy tearing his eyes from her wound to her face. One of his hands, clean from the blood, rested on her cheek again. She glanced at his lips and found him doing the same thing when she looked back to his eyes.

They were a trolley, heading down a hill.

Bellamy moved closer, and hesitated like he wanted to make sure this was the right move.

There was no spiralling off the road for them; it was a clean straight from top to bottom.

Clarke filled in the gap of where he paused, pressing her lips against his.

Bellamy caught her at the bottom of the hill in the same way he pushed her off at the top.

He immediately reciprocated, his hand holding her in place and his lips making her never want to move back.

Clarke pushed Bellamy off at the top of the hill, and she helped him land at the bottom.

Her good hand clenched at his t-shirt, bringing her closer to him in every way she knew how.

Their trolley was sturdy and fast; a good run, a strong one that would leave them reeling.

Bellamy’s fingers wove themselves through her hair, and she found herself groaning into his lips. When they pulled apart, her eyes flickered open to stare directly into his. Bellamy’s. The love of her fucking life’s. And she smiled. And Bellamy smiled. And he pressed another kiss to her lips as they grinned. Clarke didn’t hear the cheering from around her, but she guessed it would be there. She was enraptured by Bellamy Blake. And she never wanted to be anything else.

 

The days that followed were perfect for Clarke. She couldn’t have asked for anything more. She’d never realised how much she wanted Bellamy’s weight pressed on top of her, during sex or just when they were giggling on the sofa, when she was cheating at Mario Kart. Clarke had never known how badly she craved his touch; the feeling of his skin on hers, or the look in his eyes when he watched her move. She’d never even noticed how strong her feelings were.

Sex had never played a large role in Clarke’s life. Sure, she’d had sex with both Finn and Lexa, finding different ways that made her squirm, taking turns and long moments to decide what she wanted to do next. But it wasn’t like that with Bellamy. He was everything she wanted, and everything she didn’t _know_ she wanted, wrapped up in one. They fell asleep the first night, his arm circling her waist, the second they’d returned from the hospital. It was a few nights after that anything moved further, and Clarke wondered why it hadn’t before.

She questioned the six years that led up to that moment. Why had she wasted so much time? Why didn’t she pluck up the courage and kiss him sooner? Even so, she was thankful for the moments she was granted, still asking for more at any chance she was given. They stayed in bed until eleven each morning, curled up against each other and listening to the sounds of their roommates, wandering about. She wondered in those moments if Bellamy knew that Lincoln and Octavia were ninety-nine percent definitely dating. But those thoughts were drowned out by his lips against her neck.

At night, they’d stay awake until sleep forced them to shut their eyes. They’d talk up until that moment, laughing and joking and kissing like they never had before. It didn’t take long for Bellamy to tell her he loved her, and she returned it immediately.

“I love you,” he’d say, and press a kiss against her lips.

“I love you, more,” she’d reply, returning the kiss and sweeping her tongue across his lower lip.

“Not possible,” he’d breathe before letting her tongue enter his mouth.

There was nothing between them anymore; no gap that they had to leave, no worrying about girlfriends and boyfriends and people walking in on them. There wasn’t a secret between them; all knowledge was common knowledge and Clarke relished in the fact of her knowing him better than anyone else. Bellamy Blake – her person and no one else’s.

It was a week in when she decided she wanted to stay with him, in his apartment, over the summer. She told him as they made dinner, hips bumping into each other and grinning. She said it off-handedly and he stopped for a moment to look at her carefully.

“Are you sure?” He asked. She grinned up and him and nodded.

“More sure of this than anything,” she replied, moving onto her tip toes to press a kiss to his lips. Naturally, he deepened it until she pulled away, reminding him that he wasn’t stirring the pan. He’d rolled his eyes.

“I’m the cook, here,” he told her.

“A true cook would have stirred _and_ kissed,” Clarke retorted with a grin.

She then spoke to Lincoln, and he hugged her, when she said she wanted to move in with Bellamy. Octavia did the same thing, grinning and giggling that she’d have another girl in the flat until September, when she moved into a dorm. Bellamy had rolled his eyes at this.

“She’s always across the hall,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but now she’s here,” she replied. Octavia wanted to spend a year in the dorms, giving herself a bit of a separation from her brother, to help her find herself properly. She didn’t want to be attached to the guy at the hip. Even so, while Octavia was out with Lincoln (although, Clarke was sure she’d told her brother she would be with Jasper and Monty – something about Lincoln being a couple years older than even Clarke meant that it had to be kept a secret for a while longer) Bellamy flopped onto the sofa with his girlfriend. ( _Girlfriend_ , Clarke squealed on the inside.)

“It’s a waste of money, really,” he insisted. “But I’ll keep her room set up anyway.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Why?”

“In case she ever wants to come back,” Bellamy replied. “I want her to feel like she always has a home with me.” They’d spoken for a while longer before Clarke grinned.

“Scary thought,” she told him. “But this means that the Fall wedding could be a reality.” She watched Bellamy pause for a moment, terrified she’d said the wrong thing, before he let out a breath with a smile.

“Yeah,” he agreed, looking a little stunned as he leant his head back. “Not this Fall, though,” he told her. “Way too busy for that.” Clarke rolled her eyes, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“Mm, maybe a couple of Falls away.”

“One,” he told her. “Maybe two. If we leave it three, then we’re being stupid all over again.” Clarke had laughed as Bellamy informed her that waiting almost six years to date was fairly stupid, but then again, he wouldn’t change it for the world, either. “Unless,” he added. “it would mean that you wouldn’t have ever dated Finn – because he was a train wreck.” Clarke couldn’t help but laugh again.

 

Half way through the summer, Miller, Monty, Bellamy, Clarke and Octavia had already gone away on a road trip, circling around Ark, Polis, and stretching all the way out to The City of Light, on the other side of the country, and come back again. By this point, Clarke hadn’t been home to Ark properly; just a flying visit, and Abby Griffin wanted to see her daughter home again.

Which she mentioned on the phone.

At least four times. After the fifth time, Clarke felt like saying something.

“Mum,” she sighed. “I’m happy here.”

“I know sweetie, but you’re going to be there for the next few years – this is your last chance to come home and see it all properly.” Clarke sighed, pressing her face further into the pillow on Bellamy’s bed. She was surrounded by her stuff. Considering she was just across the hall, they used very few boxes to cart her things over. This meant, though, that they had to figure out where there was space for her things.

The silence on the phone made Clarke realise something. Her mother’s voice didn’t sound desperate in the way it used to, since ‘the incident’ as Clarke came to call it. Yes, she was talking to her mother properly again, but she still got annoyed sometimes. Clarke doubted it would ever go back to the way it was before. However, her voice was pleading for a different reason.

“Why do you want me back so much?” Clarke asked.

“I said-“

“No,” she interrupted. “I know what you said. But you haven’t told me the real reason. Something’s happening, isn’t it?” Clarke waited as her mother sighed, debating with herself whether to tell her daughter or not.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Marcus and I want to get married.” The silence now was entirely different. It was stunned, confused, amazed all in one. Sure, Clarke knew they were serious, and she also knew that her mother wanted to have that sort of relationship with Marcus Kane. But she was just surprised it was actually happening.

“Wow,” Clarke ended up saying.

“Honey, are you okay with this?”

“Y-Yeah,” she replied, finding herself confused that she _kind of actually_ meant it. Miller had had a lot of talks with Clarke since his father got remarried – step parents weren’t like the ones from _Cinderella_. They could be great, and Clarke knew that Marcus Kane was a good and nice man, who’d made the effort to get to know her. It was Clarke who’d avoided him. But her mother seemed happy with him, and Clarke was immediately trying to figure out ways that she could use having a Police Chief of a step father to her advantage.

Clarke’s mother breathed a sigh of relief and Clarke sat up, leaning on her elbows.

“Hey, Mum?”

“Yes, honey?” She replied.

“Do you think Marcus, as my soon-to-be step-father and all, would be able to waive Bellamy’s parking ticket?” Abby Griffin laughed, and both women knew that it was Clarke giving her mother her blessing, as well as a genuine question.

“Thank you, Clarke,” her mother said down the line. Her voice was earnest and she smiled.

“Seriously, though,” Clarke replied after the silence.

“I can ask,” Abby laughed. “But I don’t think so.” Clarke sighed. She had a feeling that would be the answer.

 

Although Clarke had Teach First training every day; long, gruelling hours, she still made time to go and see Abby and Marcus, in Ark. Bellamy happily tagged along with her, and Miller sat in the back seat, comfortable to listen to their conversations and reply occasionally. They first dropped him off at his father’s house, where he dragged his duffel bag out from the boot of the car, and unlocked the door. His father and Eva wouldn’t have returned yet from their honeymoon – but they promised to be back in time for Abby’s wedding, in a few days.

Then, they went to Clarke’s childhood home.

Bellamy drove his shitty truck through his old neighbourhood, stopping briefly opposite his old apartment complex and staring up at the windows. She remembered being there, the night Aurora Blake died, and then again when she helped pack their things into the moving lorry. Now, though, the curtains had been changed, and she recognised a flag in the window.

Clarke gripped Bellamy’s hand across the console and he tore his eyes from the windows to her, smiling faintly.

“Someone else is growing up there now,” he told her with a sigh. She smiled, though.

“I bet their memories will be just as great,” she replied. Bellamy smiled at her gratefully before taking one last look and pulling the car back out onto the road again. It was a matter of minutes before they parked outside the Griffin household.

Even though Abby Griffin had never been particularly close to Bellamy – or liked him at all for that matter – she greeted him kindly. Clarke gave her mother and hug, and then Marcus, smiling up at him.

“I can’t wipe the driving ticket, Clarke,” he told her with an amused look. She frowned at him before turning away from him and heading back over to Bellamy.

Dinner that night was nice, too. Clarke really saw her mother being happy with Marcus; the look she had in her eye when she turned to him, or asked him a question. She knew that look to be the same one she’d give Bellamy. And if her mother was feeling anything like the way Clarke felt about Bellamy, then it had to be a good match.

The next day, Clarke woke up to Bellamy’s arm around her waist, his hair grazing the back of her neck. She felt the contentment; the sigh of relief at this being her reality. She looked around the bare walls of her old room; the pale blue paint cracking in a few areas. It was still clean, all around, though. She knew she had the house keeper to thank for that.

Across the room sat her dressing table, a large mirror against the wall above it. She smiled as she looked at it from her position in bed; the photos she’d never taken down, or with her to her new life. They were the small, silly snapshots of her and Miller and Bellamy. The quick selfies in the street or in class; the ones where they’re giggling or eating, or generally looking terrible, but she still loved enough to display in her room. She reminded herself to take them before she left.

When Bellamy stirred, she turned her head to look at him, rubbing his eyes and groaning at the morning light.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling. He groaned a little more, pressing his face into the crook of her neck to block out the light. It was a couple seconds before she felt his lips kissing at her skin. She sighed into it, feeling him smile into her neck. She only swatted him away when he started sucking at it. “No hickeys,” she reminded him. “We have a wedding to go to.” Bellamy sighed, and resorted to kissing at her skin again, pulling her body closer to his.

The wedding was still a day away, but that morning where she woke, tightly encased in Bellamy’s arms, was the day Eva and David Miller returned from their honeymoon. Miller texted them throughout the day.

_10:54: theyre home. theyre kissing. i regret this already._

_11:11: i wish they would stop kissing_

_11:12: adults are gross_

_12:45: they keep referring to each other as mr miller and mrs miller its weird help_

_2:35: im considering sedating them_

_2:36: do you have chloroform_

_2:37: i have the rags i need the chloroform_

_2:38: clarke your mother is a doctor give me all your chloroform_

_2:41: i think theyre having sex upstairs its the middle of the day what is wrong with them_

Needless to say, Miller kept them both fairly amused.

The next day, Abby Griffin and Marcus Kane got married. It was a small ceremony – with just close friends and family. Abby wore a simply white shift, with a small bouquet of white lilies, and they swore to each other over the traditional vows of saying ‘I do’.

Clarke stood next to her mother, in a pale pink summer dress, and Marcus’ best friend stood behind him in a suit. At the reception, Abby and Marcus insisted that she and Sinclair have at least one dance together, so she found herself for a full three and a half minutes, spinning around the dance floor amongst other couples with a forty year old man from the police force. She was fairly sure he even had his gun on him.

At the end of the song, the next one started up immediately. Bellamy tapped on her partner’s shoulder, asking if he could cut in. A moment later, she was pressed up against him, as Bellamy’s lips moved down to meet hers. She couldn’t help but sigh into the kiss; happy and content in the moment. Miller was right after all – her mother getting remarried wasn’t the end of the world, not by a long shot.

 

A couple of days later, she and Bellamy were sitting in their Teach First programme, learning how to teach children and teenagers alike. They filled out their forms, side by side, over where they would like to be placed. Both of them made sure they wrote Ground, and put down their family as their reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading!  
> Please subscribe to the series this is in, so you'll get emails when I start writing the short stories based on this universe! It'll continue the story, but probably in a smaller setting, from all three of our lead's POVs.
> 
> ALSO: for the schedule:
> 
> Wednesday the 22nd of July will probably be the last update to THIS story. Updates to the series, and adding new, short stories, will start any time from the 23rd.  
> From the 25th to the beginning of August, I'll be away. But it means that I'll have lots of stories by the time I return, and updates will happen then. All updates will be irregular but you'll be told about it if you're subscribed to the series!  
> Thank you!
> 
> FINALLY: WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS CHAPTER HUH HUH HUH THIS WAS IT GUYS  
> I'm actually so proud of the way I did it, like, I loved it. So, two chapters left!


	28. I Take A Deep Breath And I Get Real High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Domestication and Teaching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters!  
> Thank you so much for sticking with this story! Remember that you can press the 'share' button and place a link to this fic all over the place! I'm also going to be continuing this story with short stories in this SERIES - so subscribe to that and you'll know when it's happening!
> 
> Chapter Title from 'Hey What's Going On' (a personal favourite) by 4 Non Blonds (I think)

The first week at Ground Secondary was a complete blur for Bellamy. He was prepared, yes – he’d worked for the past two months on becoming a teacher. But he wasn’t aware that the children would be so… _childlike_.

He was teacher History; given a class in each year group. The school catered from years seven to eleven, ages eleven to sixteen, and he was in a panic just about every day. The year nines and up needed to be taught about the Greeks and their mythology for their GCSEs and the year sevens and eights generally had to be kept interested and entertained for two hours a week. Those younger years were the ones that freaked him out – no, they weren’t like the older ones, in having a large over-interest in his personal life, but they were loud and unruly all the same.

He by far preferred the older years, but he’d raised his sister so he could handle the eleven year olds, too – knowing what they wanted to hear, and what they needed to hear. A couple of the kids liked hanging around after class in the year nine group – mainly girls trying to get the inside scoop on his private life. But he was generally quite open.

One day in the second week of September, some year elevens wanted to interrupt class to ask him questions.

“I feel like I’ve seen you before,” one of the girls – Clara, he thinks – said. He nodded.

“You probably have. I taught you last week, remember?” Clara rolled her eyes and a few of the kids on her table snickered.

“I mean, _before_. Where did you go to university?”

“Here – TonDC,” he replied with a shrug. Another kid on the table; Lucas clicked his fingers.

“Did you work at The Drop Ship?” He asked. Bellamy paused before nodding.

“You’re too young to be in there, how would you know?” He shrugged.

“My brother took me in a couple of times. The other bar tender there, he rarely checks ID and literally didn’t care he was giving me alcohol,” Lucas leaned back, smirking as he spoke. He looked around the table, probably checking that everyone was just as enraptured by his story. Bellamy smirked, the kid was thinking he was cool and interesting, huh?

“Yeah, Murphy,” Bellamy told him. “He owns the place – his uncle gave it to him. I went to school with the guy.” Lucas raised his eyebrows and another kid spoke – possibly Dan, Bellamy had no idea.

“Did you go to school here?” He asked. Bellamy shook his head.

“Ark,” he replied. The kids nodded like this was a piece of information they needed to know.

“Miss Griffin comes from Ark,” Clara piped up. The class had gone fairly quiet; the work he’d handed out not interesting them as much as his personal life.

“I’m aware,” he replied. “I met her when I was your age.”

“Really?” Jennifer asked. He nodded.

“September 6th, six years ago.” They all looked fairly amazed.

“Why do you know the date?” Dan asked, raised eyebrows. “No one remembers the date they meet people on.” He shrugged.

“She’s my best friend,” he replied. “And you know who _wasn’t_ Zeus’ best friend? Literally everybody. Get on with the work.” Dan rolled his eyes and the others all turned back to their papers. Clara kept eyeing him suspiciously though.

During lunch, Clarke came to his classroom. She pulled up a chair to his desk and opened her lunch that he’d packed her that morning. She smiled at the sandwich, noticing that yes, he didn’t butter the bread, per her specifications before nodding to him.

“One of my kids-“

“You have kids, Clarke?” He asked. “I thought I’d know that by this point.” She rolled her eyes.

“One of my students kept asking about you today,” she told him. He raised his eyebrows, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

“Really?” He asked. She nodded.

“Um, Clara, I think.” He rolled his eyes.

“She’s in my class. Asked me questions and stuff,” he told her. “She found out we’re best friends.” She nodded in thought.

“That would be why she asked me the sort of things you got up to as a teenager,” she said.

“What did you say?”

“I told them to ask you about your skills at Mario Kart,” she replied. Bellamy laughed, leaning back in his chair.

“I’m good at that game,” he explained.

“No you’re not.”

“You’re not one to talk.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m aware I suck,” she informed him. “You just won’t admit it yourself. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, after all.” He grinned, rolling his eyes. A knock sounded at the door and he looked up. There was a group of girls Clara hung out with almost all the time, and they said that the previous history teacher let them eat in their room. He’d fact checked this with Miss Byrne, the medieval history teacher and she’d agreed with the girls.

He nodded towards the girls and about five of them came in. They set themselves up at a table, laying out their food.

“Hey Miss Griffin,” Clara said as she pulled out her lunch.

“Hey Clara,” Clarke replied.

“I didn’t know you had lunch with Mr Blake, too,” Clara said with a smile.

“I don’t know why I wouldn’t,” Clarke responded. Clara nodded with thought.

“Oh yeah, best friends and all.” There was something in her voice that Bellamy recognised so much in Octavia. He rolled his eyes at her as one of her friends nudged her arm.

“She ships you two,” Jennifer informed the two teachers. Clarke laughed and Bellamy grinned with a sigh.

“Not the first time,” he told them. Clarke nodded with thought.

“We actually ship ourselves, too,” she replied. The girls eyed them silently for a moment before Clarke shrugged with a grin. Bellamy laughed, going back to his food. He glanced up to the girls, who hadn’t yet stopped staring.

 “Stop staring,” he told them. “It’s weird.” Most of the girls stopped by Clara just narrowed her eyes at the teachers. Clarke turned to look at them again before turning back to Bellamy.

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d just remembered something. “Lincoln’s going to help Octavia move out today,” she told him. Bellamy looked her, nodding slowly.

“Yeah, I said I’d help when I get home,” he answered. “Her dorm’s only around the corner. Although, I’m surprised Lincoln didn’t ask her to move in with him.” Clarke stopped suddenly, staring with wide eyes.

“ _You know?”_ She asked. He rolled his eyes.

“Yes, she’s my sister, Clarke,” he told her. “I can tell when she’s dating the man-beast across the hall.” Clarke laughed.

“Does she know you know?” He shook his head.

“She’ll tell me when she wants to. But I get why they’re keeping it a secret.” Bellamy didn’t care all that much that the girls were being quiet as to listen in on their conversation. Clarke nodded, though.

“He thought you’d be mad,” she said. He shrugged.

“A little – mainly because he’s, what, seven years older than her?” Clarke nodded again. “Yeah, well you lived with him for two years and you’re not dead. He’s alright.”

“He’s a fucking teddy bear,” she replied, rolling her eyes. He didn’t miss how the girls giggled and raised their eyebrows at a teacher swearing in their presence.

“And she can handle herself. You know she signed up for kick boxing last week?” Clarke shrugged. “I think she could take him down if it went to shit.” Clarke laughed at that.

“He wouldn’t lay a hand on her and you know it.” Bellamy shrugged.

“Better not. Otherwise I’ll be the one kicking his ass.” Clarke raised her eyebrows before glancing to the clock on the wall. She sighed.

“I should get back to my classroom,” she said, standing. “But we both know that he could beat you up easily.”

“Feeling the love,” he told her as she smiled. “Fine, I’ll hide his weights, destroy his artwork and then hide from him for the foreseeable future in case he goes all Hulk on me.” Clarke laughed, sliding her chair back under a table and moving round to his side of his desk to hug him with one arm.

“Aw, babe,” she said with amused eyes. “He’d rip you in half and you know it.” He looked up at her with a smile.

“Love you too.” She reached down, quickly pecking at his lips before heading past and to the door.

“I’ll meet you at three,” she called back. He nodded, even though she couldn’t see him as she left. Then he sent a cautionary glance to the students in his room. They were watching with amused and surprised expressions.

“I see why you ship yourselves,” Clara said to break the silence.

 

His students turned out to be fairly nosey – but, according to the other teachers, they were like that for everyone they liked. He didn’t mind too much – he loved talking about Clarke; telling them about the stunts and dares they pulled in their six years together.

And apparently Clarke did the same thing, in her classes. It had started off with a question of how did you get that scar, on her right wrist, and she found herself explaining the trolley incident on their graduation day; the time before that in Ark, and a load more of their acts with Miller (Miller was mentioned a couple of times, and a few students insisted they meet him before the end of the year, seeing as it was him who went into the tattoo parlour, drunk, asking for the tattoos… The _My Little Pony_ discussion opened there and he heard nothing but jokes about Princess Celestia for the next two years of his life, coming from both students _and_ teachers.)

It became public knowledge fairly quickly that they were dating (“and he said he loved her and everything,” he heard one student gushing as he walked past). And Clarke informed him, a few days in, that they'd taken to calling her Mrs Blake, which made Bellamy grin a little too much. (The next day, when he was heading past her classroom, he heard a kid ask for her with that name, and Bellamy liked how quickly she responded to it.)

His favourite class was his year eleven one – it wasn’t his fault that Clara was so much like Octavia, and that they kept him so easily entertained. He set them work to do for the entire lesson, as he reached the end of September. They were good at getting on with the work while talking, and so he didn’t really mind. Besides, he had to work on the year eight lesson plan, because those kids were train wrecks and they knew it.

But, like always, someone called out to him just as he was getting interested in his work. It was Penny, sitting on a closer table.

“Mr Blake,” she started. “One of these says that there was a pregnant woman who was pregnant for like, four years.” He nodded.

“What’s the question?” He asked. She shrugged.

“How?” Bellamy smiled a little, leaning back in his seat.

“The woman asked the gods to get her pregnant, because she was having problems. They did. Asclepius was fairly literal in his medical mysteries, so he let her be pregnant, but never let her have the baby.”

“But that’s not possible,” Penny replied.

“Doesn’t sound it, huh? But, they believed in the gods.”

“Aren’t you supposed to give us the actual, scientific answer?” The girl next to Penny, Laura, asked. He shrugged.

“No one’s sure of how it happened. I’m not a man of science, so I could just as easily blame it on witchcraft.” Bellamy paused, as if he’d triggered a memory he didn’t know he had. It explained so much. So, damn, much. He made a note to tell Clarke at the earliest convenience, before stammering through his response. “But, um, it’s likely that they had a different view of time. Nine months now might have been shorter. She might have gotten fat and then pregnant. Um, there’s lots of replies.” He shrugged, turning back to his work, knowing that his students would be looking at him oddly.

He didn’t care.

He’d figured it out.

When the lesson finished, leading into break, Bellamy immediately left his classroom. He speed-walked to the art room upstairs, taking the steps two at a time and dodging students. Clarke’s classroom was large; it was two classes in one space, each teacher taking half the room. The floor was grey and the walls white, with splattered paint and marks of clay left along it. Not to mention the art work and posters that Clarke had hung when joining the school. The room wasn’t completely empty; a couple of students milling about, not caring about the teacher in the room.

His girlfriend in question was sitting at her desk at the far end, tapping away at her school-mandated laptop, glancing from the screen to the smart board, where the power point was being projected. He went straight over, kissing her on the cheek when he arrived and pulling up a stool.

“I figured it out,” he told her. She hadn’t even said hello yet.

“Figured what out?” She asked, turning from the screen to him, bouncing his knee in agitation.

“Why Lexa hated me.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“She didn’t hate you.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Are you trying to defend your ex-girlfriend?” He asked. She shrugged.

“She didn’t hate you.” He sighed, brushing the thought away.

“Clearly disliked,” he amended. Clarke nodded for him to continue.

“Do you remember the pub crawl at the beginning of the year?” She winced, trying to remember.

“Um, I remember the beginning of it,” she told him. Bellamy sighed through a smile, taking her hand.

“That’s because you were drunk at the first bar.”

“I’m a lightweight,” she admitted. “What happened with you and Lexa?”

“I asked how she was still sober after, like, seven places, and somehow, we decided it was witchcraft.” Just saying the word made him remember – fucking witchcraft. Clarke raised her eyebrows at him and he shrugged. “And I told her, not really thinking who she was, that I wanted a potion to get the girl I liked to like me.” Clarke smiled at this before pausing.

“You told the girl I was dating that you liked me?” She asked, her eyes dancing in amusement. Bellamy nodded before Clarke burst out laughing. He joined in, grinning at her. Then she leant forward, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

“You poor unfortunate soul,” she sighed with a smile. Bellamy rolled his eyes. He thought they were over talking through Disney quotes a long time ago. “It does explain a lot, though.” He nodded.

“Right?”

“And how, at one point, she questioned me liking her, because of you.” Bellamy froze a little.

“She did?” Clarke nodded.

“Yeah, there were like, two tiny moments of doubt, but it happened all the same. She wanted to make sure that I wasn’t interested in you.”

“Were you?”

“Well, yeah, sort of. I wasn’t going to tell her that, though,” she replied with a shrug. “Plus, you were being as clueless as I was about the whole thing.” He smiled at her.

“All it took was you in a potentially life-threatening situation for me to come to my senses.” She laughed again.

“It was a trolley, not a gun.” Bellamy glanced at the time, knowing he should get back and get ready for his next lesson.

“Could have been either,” he replied indifferently, standing and moving his chair back under the table. He pressed a kiss to her lips, lingering for a moment before pulling back. “I love you.” Clarke grinned.

“Love you more.”

“Not possible.” Bellamy gave her had a squeeze before turning and heading out from the art room.

 

When it came down to it, Bellamy loved teaching. He loved getting to work with students, and in part knowledge on his favourite subject. He loved that they had to call him by his last name, and look up to him as some form of authority figure. He found it strange that they had such an interest in his personal life, but at the same time, he really didn’t care.

It was odd, seeing them around Ground and outside of lesson. But they always made sure to look directly at he and Clarke’s linked hands before their eyes flitted away. One day in early October, Clara gave herself a mission to explain to him why they were so invested. She told him that there had been another teaching romance in the school before him and Clarke – or, Miss Blake, as she called her. Every one of the students knew the story, and what they had all learnt was that the teachers in the school were doomed.

They loved him and Clarke together, and apparently a few were worried about it ending like the others before them. But he just laughed, telling her that now he has her, he’s never letting go. He caught the look in her eye at that; the slight wishing, the interest – it was the same one he’d had when Miller told him about him officially falling for Monty. He’d wanted a love like that; someone he could trust so much.

The story of the other teachers didn’t scare him. That was more about the people, than them working together.

What he’d been told was that there was an English teacher, Miss Gregg, who’d been engaged to a man who didn’t work for the school. She cheated on him with the PE teacher, Mr Jones, and everyone thought it was a match made in heaven. They got engaged soon after, before a new English teacher joined the department – Mr Hunn. Miss Gregg cheated on Mr Jones with the new English teacher, before getting married in secret and leaving the school when he was fired, the school finding out about his past of inappropriate student-teacher relationships.

He had laughed at even the possibility of him and Clarke ending up like that. It sounded messy and strange, and something that would never happen to the two of them. He told Clarke the story when they were lounged on the sofa, their dinner plates on the floor in front of them. They watched old _Friends_ reruns and she laughed, listening to the story.

“One of my students told me that, as well,” she said. “I think it was supposed to be a warning.” He grinned at her.

“Are you in love with any of the PE teachers?” He asked. She turned to face him, an innocent look on her face.

“No, Mr Blake,” she replied. “I think I have a thing for one of the history teachers though.” He grinned at her.

“It better not be Byrne – or the old guy who has actual personal experience of World War Two,” he told her. Clarke giggled, moving up to his height.

“Nah,” she said. “He’s a new teacher; about my age, dark hair, dark eyes, the most goddamn beautiful freckles you’d ever see.” His smile grew brighter and Bellamy remembered a time in which he hated his freckles more than anything. It was long, long ago.

“Sounds like a catch.” She nodded with a smile.

“He is.” She pressed her lips to his, and he couldn’t help but run his hands down her sides, feeling every inch of her he could reach. Of course, with their luck, Miller took that moment to walk through the door, seeing as knocking was a thing of the past, and sighed.

“I’m definitely buying you guys a lock,” he told them. Bellamy laughed.

“I would buy you the skill of knocking on a door, first, and see how that goes.” Miller lightly hit him round the head, falling into place next to him on the sofa. Bellamy grinned. His best friend, Miller, had the uncanny capability to not be a third wheel at any time. Clarke shuffled back down the sofa, resting her head on Bellamy’s shoulder, and he smiled, resting his head on Miller.

“I told you,” Miller said. “I’m not joining you guys in a weird threesome. I’ll have vows at your wedding, but I will not join you on the wedding night.” Even so, Miller leant his head on top of Bellamy’s, finding it easier just to join in than complain.

“You could still come on the honeymoon, though,” he replied with a grin.

 

He’d glanced through the door sometimes, when Clarke was working and he didn’t have a lesson. He never told her that he’d seen her teach; smiling at the students and showing them how to paint. They loved her, he noticed. They loved her in a different way to how he did, but he’d heard them talk about her, about her giving them tips and answering their questions when they asked. She taught a couple of the photography lessons, too. They loved her just as much.

Clarke was well loved, and Clarke didn’t always know it. When Bellamy watched her, he would smile. When he woke up to her in the morning, or found her cooking, or on the sofa, or in his clothes, or just _saw_ her, he would smile. She was everything he wanted and everything he needed.

Clara, his nosiest student, liked to ask questions during lunch, whether Clarke was there or not. Most days, she asked when they were getting married. The answer was always the same: “Fall.” They never specified which Fall, just Fall, at some point, some day. Although, Bellamy really didn’t want to wait. He’d waited six years to fall in love with her, and have her with him. He wanted her as soon as possible.

It made sense to him. It also made sense to Miller, who he dragged through jewellers for days on end, to find the right ring.

“You know you don’t need to propose if you’ve been engaged since you met, right?” Miller would ask. He asked stuff like that a lot, it seemed. Bellamy would shrug.

“I want to do it right. I want to give her a ring.”

The one he decided on was a plain silver band, with embedded gems in the metal. He knew Clarke didn’t like obtrusive rings, and he knew she would appreciate him remembering. Although, there was nothing Bellamy didn’t remember about Clarke, at this point. History may have been his favourite academic topic, but Clarke was his favourite subject.

When he proposed, he didn’t get half way through the question. Bellamy reached “Will you-“ and showed her the ring before she said “yes”. And even then, she said it ten times, just to make sure he heard it.

Bellamy had a pretty strong feeling that he’d never _stop_ hearing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all kudos, comments and bookmarks you guys send me. We're getting to the end now - only ONE CHAPTER LEFT. Thank you thank you thank you for reading, just writing this has made me super happy, but to have such great people following it is really making it better!
> 
> I changed the names, actually, but the story of the English teacher who just cheated on everyone is a true one. A lot of the descriptions of the schools come from my secondary school I went to - so Mr Jones? Yes, in the school he was at before, he dated three of the students. Weird guy. Classically handsome. All of the English teachers had a crush on him. (Apart from the two lesbians that were dating each other.)
> 
> Tell me what you thought of the chapter, and also if you could put in the comments WHAT SCENES YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE SHORT STORIES.  
> Ex.: domesticated fluff, children, Miller trying to figure out fucking adoption papers etc.


	29. Feels Like I'm Knocking On Heaven's Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Final Chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sobbing. This is it. This is the final chapter of Everybody's Looking For Something. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY 60,000 WORD MONSTER. I LOVE YOU ALL.
> 
> Please enjoy this last chapter, I had quite a lot of fun writing it, and I tried to tie off every story line! Please make sure you read the notes so you can be told about the continuation of this universe, and make sure you tell me if you still have any questions! If there are any story lines that need to be finished, I'll be able to write them into the short stories.
> 
> ENJOY.
> 
> Chapter Title from 'Knocking On Heaven's Door', this particular cover is by RAIGN. (Not found on the playlist, but is on youtube.)

“Princess, we’re going to be late!” Bellamy called from the front door. It was the last day of school before the Christmas holidays and Clarke was already running late.

“Hold on!” She yelled from their bedroom. On the sofa, Octavia snorted. She had to leave her dorm for the holidays, and so was back in the apartment instead of paying out money for the holiday accommodation. It was surprisingly early for her to be awake, actually – but Bellamy didn’t have time to think about it. They were running late and form started in about twenty minutes.

“Princess!” He called again.

“Hold! On!” Came the response. Octavia cackled, spooning cereal into her mouth.

Clarke emerged from their bedroom, hopping on one foot as she pulled on her flats. Clarke wore skinny jeans and a large dark jumper; she’d learned quickly that being an art teacher and wearing light-coloured clothing just didn’t mix. The jumper had the words ‘Mrs Claus’ on the front, per the request that all teachers wore Christmas jumpers for the last day of school. Clarke had been fairly enthusiastic about this idea, which was why Bellamy was standing by the door, begrudgingly wearing a ‘Mr Claus’ jumper over his work clothes.

Even in such a dorky jumper, Bellamy couldn’t help but see how beautiful Clarke was. He really lucked out, and he knew it.

“Bye O,” Bellamy said, heading out the door. He heard Clarke say goodbye, and Octavia yelling it as the door shut and Clarke jogged to catch up with him.

They sped down the stairs, their feet thumping on odd steps, before making it out to the truck and jumping in. Bellamy was lucky that this was a day in which the truck decided to start without any problems.

“Thank God,” he muttered before pulling out onto the road. As Bellamy wove between cars and slowly inched up the speed, Clarke sighing, shutting her eyes as she rested her head back against the head rest. “You okay, Princess?” Bellamy asked. She nodded her head.

“Yeah. Why do you call me Princess?” She asked. He rolled his eyes.

“I’ve answered this for you so many times,” he told her. Clarke shrugged.

“I know. I just feel like there’s more to it.” Clarke was right. There was more to it. He always had three reasons for calling her Princess, and he’d only ever told her two. Apparently, this thought was evident on his face. “Aha! There’s another reason, isn’t there?” Clarke leaned over from her seat, placing her hands on the middle of the padded bench that was the front of the truck. Bellamy just sighed.

“Maybe,” he replied. She grinned at this.

“Well you’ve got to tell me!” He shrugged, changing gears and turning the corner.

“I don’t want to,” he said. Clarke pouted, sighing. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her fiddling with her engagement ring, sitting proudly on her left hand ring finger. He smiled when he saw it, as always.

“Is it a bad reason?” Clarke asked.

“No.”

“Then why can’t you say?”

“Because it’s embarrassing.” This made Clarke even more interested.

“More or less embarrassing than your tattoo?” He snorted, trying to keep his eyes on the road and not on his distractingly fantastic fiancé.

“Less embarrassing in principle. More embarrassing because it was a conscious choice.” Clarke sat back against her seat in thought. The clock slowly ticked over another minute, and Bellamy was twelve minutes away from form. Six minutes away from the school. He could make it.

“We’re getting married, right?” Clarke asked. Bellamy groaned.

“Not this again.” She grinned but kept going.

“If we’re getting married, we should tell each other everything, right?”

“You’ve got to stop guilting me with this,” he told her.

“You would want me to tell you everything, shouldn’t you give me the same curtesy?”

“Can’t we be a twentieth century couple, where you have to tell me all your secrets, but I remain an enigma as you do all the cooking and cleaning and I go to work and use you as a source of comfort and release?” Clarke snorted.

“Yeah, if you want to start off our future in a patriarchal abusive relationship,” she replied sarcastically. Bellamy grinned, rolling to a stop at a red light. He looked over to her, taking one of her hands in his.

“If it would mean not telling you why I call you Princess…” he trailed off as Clarke laughed, backhanding him on the arm.

“Bell!” She complained. He grinned as the lights turned from red to amber, and he started moving again. Bellamy sighed. He knew he was going to have to tell her someday, but today wasn’t really that day, he felt.

“Can’t we talk about something else?” He asked. She shrugged.

“Like what?”

“Like how you haven’t spoken to your mother since she returned from her honeymoon?” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“So this is how it is?” She asked. Bellamy sighed, but glanced over to her and saw her small smile. That relaxed him. He didn’t want to have an argument while driving _and_ being late for school. “I would have spoken to her,” she explained. “But she didn’t phone.”

“She phoned four times in the past week,” Bellamy corrected.

“Okay, I didn’t get the messages,” she amended.

“You picked up twice before hanging up, and the other two times let it go to voice mail.” Clarke groaned.

“Stop knowing things,” she complained. Bellamy chuckled, turning another corner. His smile faded into a groan, finding the road closed off for construction. Bellamy groaned, leaning forward and hitting his head onto the wheel. He checked the time again. Ten minutes. He could do this, right?

He reversed out of the road, turning and deciding that it would have to be the long way around.

“Are you angry at her?” He asked after devising a new route to work in his head. Clarke shrugged.

“No. She moved on – it’s been almost fifteen years, she deserves to.” Her words were slow, knowing that she couldn’t take them back once they’d been said.

“Okay,” Bellamy replied. “Do you not like Marcus?” She hesitated before shaking her head. Bellamy turned and took a side road, hoping to cut down on the time, but found a car slowly pulling out of a small spot in front of him. He was about to turn around, but found another car, directly behind him. _They’re up my ass_ , he thought in annoyance.

“I like Marcus. He’s nice, and interesting, and is a generally good guy. I don’t have a problem with him,” she said. Bellamy leant against the door, his head in his hand as he watched the silver Nissan pull out. It was going at a snail’s pace and the car behind him had no interest in moving any time soon. He looked to Clarke.

“But he’s not your Dad,” he said, saying the words that Clarke wouldn’t. She sighed, nodding.

“That’s what Miller said, too,” she agreed. Bellamy reached out, taking her hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’ve made my peace with him being gone – but it’s just that Marcus isn’t him. But he’s my step-dad. And I can’t help trying to figure out the person I would be if Marcus had been my father instead.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow but Clarke didn’t continue to talk.

“I don’t think you should worry about that,” he told her. “That isn’t your reality.” She gave him a funny look, so he kept going. “Your reality is right here, in the babe-mobile, having grown up for the majority of your life with just your mother. You don’t need to think about any other ones.”

“But what if that wasn’t my reality?” She asked.

“Then we probably wouldn’t be in this situation,” he told her. “There was a play, called _Constellations_ , directed by Nick Payne or someone.” He saw her watching intently, and as he spoke, switched his gaze between her and that damn silver Nissan. “In this play, it was explained that there are different realities – there are so many versions of our universe. In each of these parallel universes, something different happens, meaning that each universe will have a different future, even if some are similar. And none of us know which future will be ours until we’ve lived it.

“With us,” he continued. “what if, on that first day, the teacher had sat us separately? We wouldn’t have become friends, and if we had, it wouldn’t have been that day. We wouldn’t have had the anniversary last year and we wouldn’t have stopped speaking for two months. But, overall, we probably wouldn’t be engaged now.” Clarke watched him carefully. “If we hadn’t kissed on our graduation day, if you had forgiven Finn and gone back to him, if Lexa hadn’t gone after her ex, if Miller had decided he didn’t like you – Clarke, it changes everything.”

“If Dad hadn’t died,” she continued slowly, and Bellamy nodded. “then I would never have moved to Polis, or met Maya. Jasper wouldn’t be happy now. I would have stayed friends with Wells, and probably formed a bad opinion of you and Miller because of that. I would have gone to the same university as him, across the country, probably studied to be a doctor…”

“And we wouldn’t have this,” he held their hands up between them. “Princess, we don’t know any of this for sure – but that’s just it. Those aren’t our universes. In plenty of them, I’m sure my mother’s alive and I’m still dating _Echo_. But those futures aren’t ours. This is our future, and in this one, we’re going to be late for work, there’s a driver that doesn’t know how to pull out of his spot, and we’re getting married.” The lines on Clarke’s forehead eased as she grinned up at Bellamy’s smiling face.

Their lips always reached the perfect balance of pulling and pushing against each other. His eyes fluttered shut, and his free hand came up to ghost along her skin. He felt her shiver into the kiss before they pulled apart.

“I love you,” she told him. He smiled.

“I love you more.”

“Not possible,” she replied. Bellamy turned back to the road, finding the car pulling out down the road. He sighed with relief, pushing down on the accelerator and glancing at the clock. Six minutes. He swore inside his head but kept driving anyway.

“So Octavia told you about Lincoln?” Clarke asked a few minutes later as Bellamy wove between cars. He nodded.

“Yeah, she was really surprised when I told her I didn’t mind,” he replied.

“Not even the age thing?” She asked. He shook his head.

“I mean, it’s a little weird that he’s even older than me,” he told her, sighing at another red light. He so wasn’t making it into work on time. He turned to Clarke. “But he’s good to her, and she loves him.”

“How long have they been dating for?” He shrugged.

“I think since she was about seventeen,” he replied. “So, back when you were with Finn and I was with Echo, probably.” Clarke nodded in thought.

“It would explain why Lincoln had been making loads of plans but not telling me where he was going,” she said. He smiled.

“What, you didn’t guess?”

“I’ve had an inkling since they met,” she said with a shrug. “Nice to know they’re being open about it now.” Bellamy nodded, speeding away from the green light. Two minutes. He drove down side roads, knowing that the traffic was going to be terrible no matter what.

“So you’re not going to tell me why you call me Princess?” Clarke asked eventually. Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“Why do you want to know so badly?” He asked. She shrugged.

“It’s what you call me,” she replied. “You got jealous of Finn for calling me it, and you’ve been saying it since year eleven. Just wanted to know, I guess.” In his peripheral vision, he saw her turn to look out the window. Bellamy sighed, knowing it was a losing battle.

“Three reasons,” he said into their silence. Her head snapped to look at him. “One, because of the uniform. No one wore it like that – it was just you.” She nodded. “Two, because of the class system, and the fact that you were very literally Ark’s own Princess – I mean, the town is in your name.” Clarke grinned. “Three,” he sighed. “Because you looked like one to me.” Clarke furrowed her brow as he glanced from the road to her.

“What do you mean?”

“All those stories I used to read Octavia as a kid – Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty. They all had the beautiful princess in them. When I saw you, I remembered them.” Bellamy sighed again, partly because of the story, partly because of the clock ticking over to eight.  “It was like I was sitting next to a real princess.”

He knew the school was up ahead and Clarke stayed quiet as the clock ticked over to one past, two past, three past. It was almost five past when he finally parked and looked to her. She was lost in thought, but when he nudged her arm she turned to him with a smile.

She leant forward, crashing her lips against his and grinning into the kiss. Her hands found his hair and he leaned into it, his hands groping at her hips and sliding up under the Christmas jumper. When she pulled away, she smiled, a bright blue-eyed smile that made his heart clench.

“I love you,” she told him. “I love everything about you, from your Princess tattoo down to your Princess thoughts.” He grinned at her and pressed another lingering kiss to her mouth.

“We’ll be late,” she said, pulling away again. He shook his head.

“I don’t care.” Clarke let him kiss her again and again and again before they finally left the truck.

 

 

Bellamy loved Clarke with the seasons. Each time the leaves changed or the sun dipped slower, he loved her in a different way. Each season, just as powerful and beautiful as his love for her.

In Winter, they wore the matching Christmas jumpers and the school cooed at them. He grinned for the photos, and visited her during his lunches. They huddled close against the cold, and when the snow fell he told her of childhood memories with Octavia, letting her wear his coat when they couldn’t afford one for her. She would tell him of the snow in her back garden; the snowmen she and her father would build and Bellamy made sure to build her one that took weeks to melt back down to water. He loved her with every flake of glistening white, and every hot chocolate she made for the both of them. He loved her on Christmas day when they exchanged presents and ate as a family and drank whiskey in front of films that he’d long forgotten.

In Spring, she would take his hand and lead him through town during the weekends. They would drink to new life, and stroke the dogs they walked past on the street. She would bring Miller to the bar when he was sitting there with Murphy, and they would tell the Easter story in different ways each time it was brought up. He loved her as she was making expressions of the angels that rolled away the tombstone, and he loved her when she dragged him to the farm outside of Ground. He loved the look in her eyes as she stroked the baby lambs, and he loved the way that she told him about new life, as if he hadn’t already heard it all before. She was a marvel and a majesty; something he would watch when she didn’t know it, just wondering how he ended up so lucky.

During the Summer, he’d bring her flowers and they’d sit opposite Murphy in a dark bar, talking about the sun light. They’d joke and clink bottles with their friends, just finishing their exams, and sit on chairs, squinting through the crowds to watch them all graduate. They drank moonshine and told the story of the last trolley ride one too many times; celebrating their anniversary along with the scar that was still so prominent on his fiancé’s wrist. He loved her as she pulled him out from the darkness into the light, and he loved her when she insisted they learn to skateboard and to scuba dive. He loved her when she took them all on a trip to the beach, no matter how far away, so they could go out on a boat and splash in the ocean. He loved her sun tan, and he loved the way she traced his freckles with her fingertips. He loved her hair fading two shades lighter and the sketchbook she showed him, filled with his face.

In Fall, he loved her more than ever before. The leaves turned from green to orange, and he sat, silently reading in the park while Clarke sketched them over and over. She pulled him into shops so they could buy jackets and jumpers they didn’t need, and they kissed in the changing rooms as they pulled off their clothes. She complained at night over teaching the same things that she taught the year before, and fiddled with her engagement ring while falling asleep on his shoulder. She wore a white dress that he’d never seen before, from her shoulders to the floor, and her hair was curling down her back. She was the epitome of beautiful and he didn’t know how it took him six years to get her. She was kind and caring and gentle and he loved her more than anything, as he took her hand. He brushed away her tears and she kissed at his, and he danced with her alone in a crowded room, his forehead pressed against hers, eyes shut, relishing in the feel. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. And he told her it every day, every night, every time he saw her, he couldn’t help it. He took her hand in his and slipped a new ring onto her finger, and she kissed his freckles individually at night. She counted them in the day time, and wrapped a curled lock around her finger. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. And he told his Princess that at every available opportunity. She asked if that made him a king, and he told her only if she’d be his queen. She grinned and slipped a ring onto his finger, kissing his freckles one by one.

He loved her.

It only took him seven years.

 

 

 

**Fin.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU  
> you guys are great  
> truly amazing  
> spectacular
> 
> SO, if you want more of this universe (because you absolutely loved this story even though it started off as a way to pass the first few weeks of the summer holidays) then you can SUBSCRIBE to the SERIES. More short stories, based in this universe will be added there over the course of time, the earliest one will be the 23rd of July! (TOMORROW.)
> 
> You guys have all truly been fantastic, so thank you for sticking by me and my story and my character's trains wrecks of lives. If you have anything you want to say, make sure you put it in the comments! I read and love every single one of them. If you have any ideas for scenes the short stories (about two thousand words each) could revolve around, PLEASE tell me, so I have lots of ideas! (WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE ENDING?)
> 
> 'Constellations' was an amazing play and I recommend that you all go see it (wear protective shades or something, the flashes hurt your eyes) .
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH.
> 
> NOW FOR THE PLAYLIST:  
> I've been working on the playlist throughout writing this story - about Bellamy and Clarke in the show, and outside of it - and if you have spotify then this link will be able to take you to my profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/121953968 (GO TO 'PUBLIC PLAYLISTS' AND THE PLAYLIST IS CALLED MURDER COUPLE) (stop judging my music taste idek how corbin bleu got anywhere near my music)
> 
> If you don't have spotify, or want the list written out for you, here it is in order of appearance:
> 
> 0\. Emily Browning - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)  
> 1\. The Civil Wars - Devil's Backbone  
> 2\. Dead Man's Bones - Lose Your Soul  
> 3\. Imagine Dragons - Demons  
> 4\. Imagine Dragons - Warriors  
> 5\. Lorde - Glory and Gore  
> 6\. Florence and The Machine - Howl  
> 7\. Paramore - Monster  
> 8\. Imagine Dragons - Battle Cry  
> 9\. Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked  
> 10\. Royal Blood - Blood Hands  
> 11\. Arctic Monkeys - You're So Dark  
> 12\. The Gaslight Anthem - 45  
> 13\. Tonight Alive - The Fire  
> 14\. Radiohead - Creep  
> 15\. Muse - Uprising  
> 16\. Thirty Seconds To Mars - This Is War  
> 17\. Matchbox Twenty - Let's See How Far We've Come  
> 18\. Bastille - Icarus  
> 19\. Daughter - Smother  
> 20\. Woodkid - Iron  
> 21\. The Spiritual Machine - Couldn't Stop Caring  
> 22\. Foo Fighters - All My Life  
> 23\. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For  
> 24\. The Pretty Reckless - Make Me Wanna Die  
> 25\. Coldplay - A Sky Full Of Stars  
> 26\. 4 Non Blondes - Hey, What's Going On?  
> 27\. RAIGN - Knocking On Heaven's Door  
> 28\. BONUS - Lana Del Rey - Gods & Monsters
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Please hit up the comments, kudos and bookmarks, and tell me what you liked, disliked, loved and wanted removed. Am I funny yet?


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